Fly Now
by Awesome Bill From Dawsonville
Summary: When the crew of the Ghost finds themselves stranded on an Imperial controlled Outer-rim world, they have to find a way to fix their ship before they are discovered. A possible solution appears in the form of a local, who may know the right people to get the crew what they need to get out before they are found out.
1. Chapter 1

Discalimer: Star Wars is the Property of Disney and LucasFilm, I own nothing but the story and OC.

AN: First story I've ever published, but not the first I've written.

This is story does feature what is technically an Original Character, but the character is more of an in universe representation of a Character from another Franchise, but it's not a true cross over, more of an inspiration drawn from another source with Star Wars Rebels as the medium of expression.

I'd also like to see if anyone can guess the character inspiration for the OC when he appears, I make this note now because I don't plan of making Author notes at the beginning of every chapter other than possibly minor ones. The OC does not appear in this chapter, but like I said, I don't plan on anymore long Author notes.

Either way here's the story. Please leave a Review if you like it, hate or feel indifferent and tell me how you think it can be improved.

Chapter 1

"We can't afford that!" Hera shouted, in a voice declaring both her frustration and despair. Sabine wasn't any sort of expert on ships, but she knew enough, and she knew the _Ghost_ wasn't going to be flying any time soon.

The ship had sustained what was originally thought to be minor damage to the hyper-drive engines fleeing from and Imperial Star Destroyer. This little over sight, which Sabine could now see was entirely avoidable had they not risked such a long jump, had already grounded them for a week on Baffop, which made for the worst combination for the Lothal rebels. Outer-rim _AND _Imperial Controlled, either one wouldn't of been a problem on its own, but this certain set of circumstances made it for hell on the crew.

Out rim territories were generally not as well supplied as mid-rim or inner-rim worlds, so parts were hard to find, but normally had a black Market that could be used to obtain any part's they normally would of needed, but the heavy Imperial presence hurt their efforts two fold. First was the black markets was nearly pushed into non-existence, with few people still trying to move these items, and those who did asked for enormous price. Second, they had to be careful where they went, they were all wanted rebels, and couldn't easily walk out among the population, wit out some fairly large risk.

This was again compounded by the ships in ability to fly, they had no escape if they were discovered, again adding to the problem.

"I'm sorry miss, but the risk involved in moving these parts without Imperial knowledge means I have to up-charge the merchandise." said the elderly man in voice that implied a sympathy his eye's clearly contradicted.

Sabine watched as Hera tried to dicker the man down from the outrageous price of 100,000 credits to something they could afford, something in the range of 15,000 credits. But the old man was having none of it, he said he'd go as low as 95,000 and no lower, still far out of the range of the current treasury, which at this time Sabine estimated stood at approximately 20,000 credits.

Hera tried for another hour but had no luck in changing the man's mind. Sabine heard Hera shout something about being a criminal before storming out of the bar they had meet in.

Sabine followed closely behind the pilot, wanting to talk to her, but not sure what to say. Ultimately she decided on "So, were not getting the parts are we?"

Hera, normally cool and collected gave Sabine a dagger glare for a fraction of a second, before her face softened with her reply "No, and that guy was out best hope, as far as we've been able to gather, he's one of only three people in this entire system even willing to risk black-market sales, and the only one who has the parts we need."

Sabine gave Hera a sympathetic look before placing hand on her shoulder. The Ghost was important to all of the rebels, essentially serving as their home, but it meant more to Hera than any of them, it was hers and she cared for it in ways Sabine guessed only a ship owner could.

As they continued to walk back to the ship, which they had landed on the outskirts of this small landing port, Sabine decided to ask a question she'd asked probably half a dozen times already, but could help but ask again "Are you sure we can't fix it without the parts?"

Hera shook her head, her lekku swaying from side to side "Not with how fried they are, not something worth risking."

She didn't know why she thought it would be any different this time, but she hated the idea of the alternative, actually paying that old crook the price he was asking. They simply couldn't afford it, and she didn't know how they'd make the credits, even if they could, but the alternative was simply not expectable.

As the approached the ghost Sabine could help but notice how intact the ship looked, and it seemed odd it was currently incapable of long distance flight.

Was the walked up the ramp, the ship seemed quiet, even Chopper was shut down for the moment, it could only mean the boys were out on one errand of another. It wasn't that Kanan was a loud person, in fact he was fairly mellow on the whole, but Zeb and Ezra were rarely quite in each other's company, either bickering or outright fight with each other.

Hera sat at the table in the ships small kitchen. "Well, looks like the boys are out on some little mission, just as well, I'm not looking forward to telling them about our luck."

Sabine sat down across from Hera with a large sigh. "Well what are we going to do now?", it was more of a statement than a question, they were really up with creek without a paddle this time. With no way to replace or fix the ships damaged engines, they looked like they were in for a long stay on Baffop.

She supposed it could of been worse, the planet wasn't one of climatic extremes that some planets could be, and at least had a sizable population in some areas. The small space port they currently frequented was a satellite of the planets capital city _Creed_. Contrary to popular belief, if you wanted to stay hidden, you went to the biggest city possible. While they had higher Imperial presence than small towns, the sheer number of people meant the likely hood of be recognized was fairly low so long as you didn't actively draw attention to yourself.

Sabine herself had been to _Creed _twice sense they had landed on the planet. It wasn't the biggest city she'd ever seen, but did house a fairly large population and was developed quite a bit, which she was certain was due to imperial presence and soldiers station near the city. From what she could gather the City had gone through a fairly large boom in the years following the rise of the Empire.

But there was nothing to do in the city, at least for her. Anything that night of interested her cost money she was completely unwilling to speed given their current situation, and everything else was incredibly dull. But given what she just heard, if they were going to be staying here for the long haul, they might have to find some way to integrate into the city, and that meant getting some of normal job.

It's not that the idea wasn't something they had discussed before, as a possible plan for long term infiltration of some imperial controlled worlds, but this was not how she imagined it coming to pass, and the fact that if they wanted to get any sort of income, they would have to.

Coming back from her thoughts, she noticed Hera looking blankly at the table. "We could try and steal the parts." Hera began "But we don't know where he actually keeps them, we'd have to trail him or bug him to find out where he stashes the parts." Hera huffed "That's assuming they are even stored on-world, in which case, if there not, we're screwed."

"It's alright Hera, we'll figure something out, we always do." Sabine said before adding in "And there is always Kanan, he usually can find ways out of these situation when no one else can."

Hera smiled at this, and nodded. Kana could always be counted on when in dire straits, one of the advantages of having a Jedi on board.

If anyone of the crew could find a solution to this it was Kanan. There were many forces in the universe Sabine didn't understand, the Force being just one, but she had learned from her time with Kanan that something were not easy to understand, and sometimes what seemed like a bad situation could be a blessing in disguise, and she hoped this was one of those situation.


	2. Chapter 2

AN: This it what I consider the first real chapter. My OC ( I use the term somewhat lossely here) is introduced this chapter, let's see if anyone can guess what character inspired him. The only hint is that he's not from the Star Wars Franchise.

Disclaimer: Star Wars belongs to LucasFilm, and Disney. I claim no owner ship and make no profit from this story.

Chapter 2

Despite Sabine's and Hera's best hope, upon their return, the boys did not have any better solutions, those closest solution they found was a third rate mechanic who, while claiming to be able to fix anything, clearly did adequate work at best.

Zeb was crankier than usual, and even Ezra took enough note to stay away from him, which said a great deal given Ezra usually never missed a chance to harass him.

Kana and Hera retired to their cabin, too exhausted to even try and continue on with the day. Ezra, normally energetic and never missing an opportunity to either mess with Zeb or try and impress Sabine was to worn out from the day to do anything other than head to bed.

Sabine however couldn't take the atmosphere, she needed to get out and away from the depressed air of the ship.

As she lowered the ramp, she decided to take a shuttle into the city, "Third time's the charm." she told herself as she made her way to the port.

The ride was uneventful, and the city, true to the past two visits, did not have anything much of interest to her, although she hadn't planned on being entertained in the ride to the city anyway.

This time decided to try her luck in one of the lower income areas of the city, hoping this would offer a different sort of view on the city. Well it did, but not exactly what she had hoped for. In her experience there were basically two types of lower income areas you could find are cities. The first was normally family oriented areas, where people didn't usually have a lot of money, but the area was colorful and tended to have "Mom and Pop" type of business and attractions.

The second was area's in decay where the buildings tended to be vandalized in some way, broken windows and graffiti being the most common, although she had seen more than one incident of arson in the past, and it wasn't uncommon for some sort of criminal activity to be present in some greater or lesser way. The second was more common in the outer-rim and it appeared to be the case for this neighborhood.

One thing she could appreciate, however was the street art. While most of the graffiti was junk and simple declarations of stupidity or ignorence , some was quiet good.

As she was admiring a particular piece depicting a very cartoonish Wookiee beating up an equally cartoonish Darth Vader, she heard cheers coming from inside the building, which came as a surprise to her. Giving the initial look, she would of guessed the place was abandoned, or at least closed down. Then again, it may well be abandoned, it wasn't exactly unheard of for derelict building to be used by people for various, unsavory reasons. She herself has on a time or two been in similar situations.

Given a normal circumstances, Sabine more than likely would of investigated, given current circumstances with virtually nothing holding her attention, requiring her presence or offering her any type of even mildly amusing entertainment, it was all but guaranteed she would take a look.

Finding her way around to the front of the building, she was surprised to find the front door unlocked and not broken in or picked, it was an important distinction most wouldn't make. This seemed to indicate whatever was going on inside was happening with the owners, or at least caretakers consent. S

Making her way in, and following the shouts, she made her way down the hallway until she found the room the noise was originating from, a set of double doors. Sabine hesitated only for a second before opening the door and stepping in.

Sabine didn't know what she had been expecting but this wasn't it. A crowd of jeering spectators surrounding a square fighting ring bordered by ropes, with two fighters in the middle throwing punches at each other.

It wasn't that Sabine had never seen martial sports before, Mandalore had quite a few and they were fairly popular across the galaxy as a whole, but this looked much less like a formalized event and more like a street brawl put a ring, and had they not been wearing protective gloves and have and official moderating them in the ring, that's exactly what she would of thought this was.

But what really counted as odd in Sabine's mind was the contestants, one was a towering Trandorshan , a species known to be tough, and he was fighting a human man. Not even one of particular great size. If Sabine had to guess he stood probably 5'10" and no more, and was getting his face punched repeatedly by the Trandorshan superior reach.

As Sabine watched the apparently one sided fight, she heard a bell ring and both fighters went to their corners. Both looked like they had taken their licks ,but the human was far the worse for wear, which really wasn't at all surprising. Trandorshan's were just on average stronger and tougher than humans.

They were by no means the physically strongest species for their size in the Galaxy, Wookiee's were much more powerful and from what she had seem from Zeb, Lasat were as well. And it was not to say there weren't humans who could outmatch Trandorshans, it wasn't unheard of for a strong human to be on par with a Trandorshan. But this man had two distinctive disadvantages.

From what she could see, this sport allowed only for punches, not grappling, kicking or any other type of physical force to be used, and his arms were short even in compared to his size. On the opposite end not only did the Trandorshan stand a good head taller than him, but by their nature Trandorshans had longer arms in proportion to their body than humans did, the Trandorshan could keep hitting him without him even getting near him.

The second was that this was a formalized fight, even if it appeared only loosely so. In a real fight, a combatant can do virtually anything than can to win, cheap tricks, pulling a weapon, low blows just about anything. In a formalized match however, you are severally limited as to how you can approach a fight, and with everything else in the Trandorshan's favor in a physical sense, he clearly benefitted more from set of rules and regulations.

But Sabine could sympathize with an underdog, the crew of the Ghost were underdogs in every sense. And this guy had heart, this match was already in its fifth round by the time she came in, and from the looks of the human competitor, he was getting ready to go in again for the sixth. It would be one thing if he was winning or even evenly matched, but he was clearly losing, his battered and bruised body told the story pretty well. But he was ready for another beating.

Despite herself, she found herself rooting for the unknown human as the bell rang indicating the start of the next round, but he didn't give her much cause to hope.

She did not get to see much of him when she first came in, but now she watched him advance on his opponent and he did not seem to move all that gracefully around the ring. In fact that was the nice way of putting it, he was downright clumsy, almost stumbling around the ring trying to hit the Trandorshan anywhere he could, missing at least half of the punches he threw, it was almost painful to watch as he received repeated punch to the face and torso.

He didn't look much better in terms of health either. His face was bruised and bloody, what was normally fairly light skin was terribly bruised in farily large spectrum of colors and was heavily swollen, Sabine was infact surprised he could even see out of his left eye, which looked swollen shut, or near enough that it really didn't matter. And he looked tired, sweat ran down all over his body and plastered his black hair to his forehead and his shouldered slumped in exhaustion.

Sabine had to give to him, he could take a punch, but she could tell he wasn't going to last much longer at the rate he was going. Then she got a genuine surprise.

The human threw his left fist hard into the stomach of the Trandorshan, this cause the larger saurian to bend his torso ever so slightly, while simultaneously bring his arms down to guard his torso, and that was the opening he had been waiting for.

As the Trandorshan's arms moved to guard his mid section, the man's right fist collided with the Trandorshan's temple. Sabine though she'd never seen someone get punched as hard as she had just seen in her entire life, and was half certain she could hear the contact even in the back of the room. The Trandorshan didn't fall, he sailed through the air and landed on the ropes before bouncing off and rolling onto the mate, where he lay while the official counted.

At the count of ten , the large reptile still hadn't gotten up, although he was clearly coming back around, starting to move his arm and rolling onto his stomach with a confused and dazed look on his face, at least as far as she could tell, Trandorshan features were not as easy for her to read as other's were.

Sabine found herself clapping as the announcer called out the winner. She could barely make out his name, with no speaker system to amplify his voice, but she managed to make out "Robert "Rocco" Bardok."

Sabine was impressed, to say the least, she didn't know many who could knock out a Trandorshan, but that didn't impress her so much as his ability to take the punishment he did and still deliver a knockout punch.

She watched him turn to leave the ring, while he was simultaneously being pelted with trash. At first this perplexed her, normally the winner was applauded, not hit with trash.

It only took her second look around the room to see the situation and for it to be put into proper context. Money was trading hands in a large number of people. Apparently this guy had made an upset in winning and cost a number of people their money. "Well that sucks." she said to herself as she got ready to leave. She was planning on watching the next match they were setting up for, but seeing the crowds treatment of the participants had put her off.

Sabine made her way back the way she came in. As she got onto the street, she took the time to look around. The city was fairly unique, caught mid way between the super-cities of the core, and low down cites found in the outer-rim. It did not have any sky lanes, most of the transportation was down on the ground. It had its own charm, she supposed, at least it left the skies open and let you do star gazing if you wanted. Which it what she caught herself doing just then,

She had been out longer than she expected, and now the sun had gone down, and this wasn't exactly the best place to be out at night. She could handle herself, still she didn't want any trouble. Still she found herself staring at the stars. She couldn't help but wonder if they'd ever get off this planet and back to those stars. The fight had temporarily driven the thought from her mind, but it was always there sitting just under the surface of her mind, ready to rear itself at the slightest provocation.

"Yo, kid you alright?" a voice from behind her, while placing a large hand on her shoulder. In a surprised panic Sabine grabbed than hand and threw it, along with whoever was attached to it over her shoulder onto the ground.

With loud "Ummf!" the unknown person hit the ground. "I'll take that as a yes then." It took Sabine only second to realize who it was. It was the human fighter she'd just watched, Robert Bardok. A pang of guilt shot into her stomach , this guy was already having a rough night without her throwing him.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" she said in rush, quickly helping him to his feet. "You just took me by surprise."

"Yeah, I noticed, man your strong for such a little thing." he said laughing it off. "I'm Robert, by the way, but my friends call me Rocco, or Rob, whatever floats your boat." he said extending his hand.

Sabine took it smiling "Yeah, I know, I saw you fight, man you really laid that Trandorshan out."

"Yeah? You saw that, man I'm glad at least someone was happy." he said smiling. Sabine noticed how swollen his face actually was and tried not to star. She had seen it from a distance when he was fighting but it looked much worse up close. Quickly she changed the subject "It's really messed up how they pelted you with trash afterwards."

Robert shrugged "Ehh, it's ain't so bad sometimes they don't think and throw somethin' valuable, and you know, I get to keep it, kinda like a fight bonus or somthin'."

Sabine could help but laugh at this, she wasn't sure if he was trying to be funny or if it just came out that way.

"Well that's one way of looking at it, has that ever happened?" she said through a chuckle.

"To me?" he said putting his hand on his chest." No, not yet, unless you count this hat." he said taking off the black raged fedora. "But you know, I think this hat's pretty lucky, you know keeps my head dry when it rains and all that."

Sabine laughed again, causing Robert to shrug. "Figures I can only make girls laugh when I ain't tryin' to. So where ya live, you shouldn't be walking home alone in this neighborhood."

Sabine did her best to answer without giving any important information away, she didn't think that Robert was any real security threat, but you never knew who was listening.

"I'm actually staying on ship in the port, it's broken down and we need to fix it before we can leave, figured I look around the city, guess time got away from me."

"Yeah, well I think you should be headed back, come on I'll walk you to the transport station." he said beckoning with his left hand.

"No, that's not really necessary, I'll be fine."

"Come on, it's the least I can do for the one person tonight who didn't pelt me with trash."

Sabine shrugged and started to walk back towards the station. "Sure, at least it will give me someone to talk to. I'm Sabine by the way, Sabine Wren."

"Yeah, and you already know my name, you saw me get pounded into oatmeal tonight."

Sabine laughed again, she could already tell she was going to like this guy.

"Yeah so, I tell the guy, I tell him, you better save better , because next time I'll break your thumb.'" Rob said, while gesturing with his hands, making a motion as though he were snapping something with his hands.

Sabine gave snort of a laugh, "Rocco's" manner of storytelling didn't really give too much in terms of details, people be referred to as "this guy" or "this bum" rather than by actual names, but he was certainly fun to watch him use hand gestures for virtually any context.

Getting back to the story at hand Sabine asked "So why do you collect money for a loan shark?" The whole thing wasn't exactly what she imagined he'd do as a day job, he seemed like a pretty nice and likeable guy, she wasn't about to judge him based on what she did, besides debt collecting wasn't exactly murder, but still, it took certain type of person to shake people down for money. Granted he didn't seem to actually follow through on his threats, at least from the stories he'd told so far, still it did require intimidation, and she could seen how he was intimidating. He wasn't all that big, but he certainly looked like thug. Stocky and dressed in a leather jacket with fingerless gloves, he just gave the impression of someone ready to fight.

"Ah, it just sorta happened you know? I wasn't ever to good it school, that's why I took up fighting in the first place, you know one thing leads to another then before you know it, I'm shaking guys down for gamblin' debts." His voice betrayed his attempted indifference, this clearly wasn't what he wanted to be doing with his life.

"What would you rather be doing?" Sabine asked.

"Yeah well, you saw it tonight, Baffop is pretty big on Boxing, and major leaguers make big money, but I could never get there, don't have the technique, I've been told I fight like an ape." He said with a shrug.

They continued their walk to the shuttles in silence for a moment before Sabine said "Maybe, but you can certainly hit hard enough, not a lot of humans out there who can level a Trandorshan."

He laughed. "Yeah, that's what I got, and mean hit and an granite chin."

Sabine laughed again, for everything, Robert certainly was funny, intentional or not.

"Yeah, you think that's funny?" Robert said smiling "Man, I really crack you up don't I? You should meet this buddy of mine, he's hilarious, kinda like me, he don't even try to be funny, just don't laugh when he can hear ya, he might get the wrong impression ya' know."

"Oh yeah? Is he debt collector to?"

"Nah, he don't do nothing like that, he runs the 'graveyard.', well not so much runs it as own a part of the land it's on."

Now Sabine was confused "Graveyard? What's that, you mean like a cemetery?"

Robert looked confused for a second, then understanding appeared on his face "Oh right, you're not from here. The 'graveyard' is what people around here call the local Imperial navy retirement yard, ya' know the place where they scrap their ships. My buddy, he don't exactly run it, but the land it's on is basically rented by the Empire. It's actually a bunch of different plots of land owned by a bunch of people, but my buddy, he's the only one, so far as I know anyway, who actually does anything related to it, even if it ain't exactly legal."

"What do you mean by that?" Sabine said, this had caught her interest. She and Hera hadn't heard anything about this retirement yard, granted they probably hadn't been looking in the right places, they were looking for part dealers, not scrap dealers.

"Well, he's been known to let people on the premise to ...well let's say 'liberate' some parts for a nominal fee. The official Empire policy makes that illegal, but the officer who oversees the yard don't really care or even seem to notice to be honest. I think he might be on the take, but I don't know, maybe he just isn't the observant type."

This was not what Sabine had expected to find when she went out today, but she wasn't about to let this potential opportunity pass her by. She couldn't ask to meet this other guy right away, she had a feeling Robert wasn't in the habit of just giving out this information. She noticed he never once called his friend by his name, he just called him "buddy." Whether intentional or not, and Sabine thought it was the former, Robert was protecting his friend by not expressly giving his name away.

They came up to the shuttle time list, the next was do in five minutes. Rocco looked at the chart then to Sabine "Yeah well, nice meeting yeah Sabine, maybe I'll see ya around." he said giving her a playful jab to the shoulder, even playing Sabine felt the force behind it.

"Yeah, say Rob, why don't we meet up tomorrow, you can show me around the city, goodness knows a I need a guide to find anything worth doing around here."

Rob seemed taken aback for a second, but responded quick enough "Sure yeah, that'll be fun, why didn't meet you here around ten in the morning."

"Yeah, that sounds great, see you then...'Rocco'." she said with a smirk, before turning to get on her shuttle.

Well, she had gotten him to agree to another meeting. If she could gain his trust, she could get the information on his friend, and maybe they could get what they needed to get off the planet before they were discovered by the Empire. And it's not like it was torture hanging out with Robert, he was pretty fun from what she could see, and might just keep her from going insane with boredom.

Back on the Ghost, Sabine wasn't entirely surprised to find the rest of the crew waiting for her. She had been out longer than she intended and hadn't bothered to bring her com-link with her. And now that she thought on it, she had neglected to tell anyone where she was going.

"And just have where you been?" Kanan asked with his arms crossed, and fairly stern look on his face.

Sabine put her hands up in a defensive posture ready to defend where she was. "Okay before I get the lecture, can I say I might of found a way out of our situation?"

That had the desired effect. The once stern and overall upset faces of the crew turned into much more positive ones.

Hera was the first to respond. "Well, what? Did you find another parts dealer?"

"Well no, not exactly anyway." shuffling her feel a bit she continued."When I was out I meet this guy." her eyes shifted towards Ezra for half a second, noting the look on his face, she could quiet place what it was, but she had a feeling she knew what it was.

"Well, we kind of hit it off I guess you could say, but he's friends with a guy who works in, or at least adjacent to, an Imperial ship retirement yard. I bet if I get to know him better, I can convince him to let us have a crack at some of the parts." Hearing her idea out loud, it didn't sound as rock steady as it had in her head. Still, if offered a possibility where they previously had none , and that gave it weight.

"So you meet a guy, who knows a guy, who works somewhere, that may let us possibly have a look at some parts that may or may not be there?" Zeb said in an unimpressed voice. She didn't think he'd go with the idea, at first anyway, but he wasn't the one she needed to convince, Kanan and Hera made the decisions, and they were the ones she needed to convince.

"Yeah so? It's not like we don't have to deal with worse than unscrupulous yard workers before." Sabine defended.

Kanan sighed and Hera shifted in her seat. Kanan spoke first "Sabine, that's really not much of a plan, you just meet this guy today, this would be a long shot."

"Come on Kanan, I just need to get in contact with his friend, not his dad or something, he makes a living off of selling these parts to people, I just gotta' get to know him well enough to get to that point where he trust me enough to give out the specific contact information, it's not like we have many other options." she said with a shrug.

Hera sighed this time, and looked at Kanan "Well, If she could try, it's not like we have much to lose to give it a shot."

Kanan looked at her, before rolling his shoulders. "I guess it could work."

Sabine was glad her idea hadn't been shot down, or at least totally. She had expected Kanan and Hera's word to be final. What she hadn't expected was Ezra to counter act their decision.

"I don't like it Sabine, what makes you think you can even trust him. I mean you spent like two hours with the guy, there is no way you can really tell what he's like just from that, let alone guess you could convince him let you meet some vague scrap dealer friend."

"Ezra." Sabine began, taking a moment to get her bearings "If you meet him you'd understand, he's not exactly a complicated person, he's sort of...well." she paused for a moment to think of a nice way to say what she was thinking. Rocco really was a nice guy, but he didn't come off a very bright. Sabine wasn't sure if it was just the way he was, if he was just feeling the results of the fight he was in or if he had just taken to many hits, but regardless, he wasn't exactly putting off the aura that he was much deeper than what was on the surface. "He's kind of all near the surface." she finished.

Ezra seemed to think on this for a second, then got up with a "whatever" and went to his cabin. The rest of crew watched him go, leaving him to his own devices.

Zeb broke the silence."So, how'd you meet this fella' anyway?"

Sabine took a moment and told them of her wanderings in the city and coming up on the Boxing event, and told them Roberts name and even his nickname, Zeb snickering a "Rocco", and how they ran into each other after his match.

"But you guys should of seen him, I've never seen anyone take a beating like that and keep attacking the guy. Not only that, but the laid him out, I didn't know a human could knock out a Trandorshan just with his fist."

That got their attention. "He really knocked the Trandorshan out?" Hera asked, in mild disbelief. Sabine nodded. It wasn't that Hera didn't believe it was possible, it was just rare that a human could hit that hard. She knew that not all individual were created equal in terms of physicality. Some people were just naturally stronger than others, and this guy may just of been one of them. Still to knock out a Trandorshan, who was not only naturally stronger than humans, but were much more resistant to injury really showed something for this guy.

"When do you plan on meeting him again?" Hera asked, now slightly more concerned than she had been before. Sabine could handle herself in a fight, better than most, but that didn't mean Hera wouldn't worry about her.

"He said he'd show me around the city tomorrow, so I'll be seeing him them."

"Okay, but just be careful, I know you think you know him, but some people can hide their true intentions, no matter how stupid they seem."

"Wait, hold on a sec, I never said he was..."

"No, but it's what you meant when you said "near the surface."" Hera said, not letting her finish.

"We aren't banking everything on this working out, I hope you know, if it works great, but we're still looking into other ways of getting those parts."

Sabine nodded, glad at least to have gotten this far. This plan, she realized wasn't as good an idea as she had originally thought on the shuttle ride back. Still, better plan than nothing, and there was always a chance. The alternative however was simply not much of an option. They could stay here, eventually the imperial presence would catch them.

Three humans and a Twi'lek weren't exactly going to attract much attention, but a Lasat would eventually attract attention, especially if they stuck around. Probably not right away, but eventually word would get around to Imperial Intelligence, they would eventually investigate, and with nowhere to run, they wouldn't last long.

They could hold off a few attacks, but not full on assaults with battalions of Storm troopers. They could run and hide on the planet, but that could only get them so far. If they didn't want to get caught or worse, they'd have to get off world before long.

With the conversation over, Sabine headed back to her cabin, ready to turn in for the night.

As she got ready for bed she thought on Robert, and how to best get the information they needed. She couldn't come outright and ask, that might make him think it was some kind of sting operation. She was fairly certain he was at least aware enough of his friends actions to know he wasn't supposed to be selling Imperial parts to people, even if the local officer overseeing him did nothing to stop him.

She also doubted he'd out right offer to introduce them, she had already mentioned, even if in vague terms, they were having ship trouble. Granted she hadn't made the situation seem as desperate as it really was, maybe that had something to do with it.

Her current plan, however vague, was to get to know him, make friends and hopefully get in contact with this friend of his. She didn't think this would be too hard, they had hit it off pretty well after his fight. What's more is he seemed to have a naturally friendly and optimistic disposition, taking even the poor turn of events she seen him take, being pelted with garbage and then thrown to the ground by her, pretty well. Better than well, as a matter of fact, making them seem like positives rather than negatives.

Climbing into bed, she continued to think. This was something she always did while laying awake in bed, she thought a lot, sometimes it was good, and sometimes it was bad. Tonight it was neither, just planning on her meeting with someone who may be able to get them to the parts they needed. She knew this could turn out good or bad, but right now it was just planning. She wasn't sure how long she stayed awake, thinking about what she might have to do to gain Robert's confidence, but she felt the odds were good she could. But eventually she drifted off to sleep, her thought still on the club fighter who may be their best shot at getting off the planet.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: I don't own Star Wars, it belongs to Disney and LucasFilm, I only own the plot and my OC

I'd also like some more reviews to know what people think. I don't like asking for reviews, but right now I really don't have much of a clue as to what people think of this. I won't stop writing if I don't get some reviews, but it would be nice to know what people thing.

I'd also like to note that my OC character inspiration has hints throughout the story, and now I'll give one hint. He is based off a character from another famous movie franchise.

Thank you and enjoy.

Chapter 3

Sabine got off the shuttle to find Robert waiting for her, wearing the same outfit he was wearing the day before. In the day light she could see it much more clearly, not much of a difference, given its general dark color scheme. Dark pants and a black leather jacket in addition to his "lucky" hat and a grey under shirt with black fingerless gloves. He really looked like a debt collector in the day light. His bruised and swollen face added to the image. If she hadn't carried on a conversation with him the night before, she would of thought he was a man best avoided, not so much because he looked dangerous, although he did, but because he looked like a man who liked to start fights.

"Hey 'Rocco'! Ready to show me around town." she said in a cheerful voice, walking towards him.

As she approached him he pulled something out of his front pocket, put it in his mouth and lit it and a lighter produced from the same pocket. If took her a second to realize it was a cigarette, and as she got closer she could see, and smell from a faint chocolate smell, it was one of the special flavored types, closer to a cigar and a true cigarette. It wasn't as common to see true cigarettes and cigars as it once was, they had mostly been replaced by electronic equivalents, but they remained fairly popular in outer-rim territories.

He took the cigarette out of his mouth with two fingers. "Yeah, so what do you want to do, any ideas?"

"I don't know, that's the whole reason I'm having you show me around, so I can learn about this city, did you already forget?" she said playfully punching him in arm. It was like hitting the a brick wall. Then she added, almost as an afterthought "You know those things are hell on your lungs."

He waved her off in an unconcerned manner "Yeah, filthy habit, don't ever start." Placing the cigarette back into his mouth. "Okay, so you want me to show you around, well the park's a good place as any to start."

With that they were off. Sabine stayed next to him the whole time, they talked about a variety of things, mostly boxing and The Ghosts problems, granted Sabine didn't give any details that could give up who they were, leaving out the ships real name and how it was damaged.

"So that's out situation, I'm not much of a mechanic, but I know enough that it can't be fixed and we can't afford to replace the parts." She finished, with a bit of a sigh.

"Man that's rough." Robert said taking one last puff from his cigarette before flicking the filter away. "I wish I could help you out." He paused for a moment, thinking "You remember that buddy of mine I told you about yesterday?"

"Yes." Sabine said, making sure to keep her voice low and slow, trying to sound casual but vaguely interested, not wanting to betray the excitement she felt , she felt like she had a good idea where this was going, and it looked good.

"Well, maybe I can get him to let you have a look around the yard, maybe you can find what ya need there. I'll give him a call tonight."

"Really?! You can do that for us?" Sabine had hoped get to this point eventually, and honestly she didn't really have much if a time frame in mind, but a single day definitely hadn't been what she expected. She supposed that her suspicion he didn't trust people with the information wasn't as accurate as she had originally assumed. Either that or she had just gained his trust very quickly, either way she wasn't going to complain.

"Yeah, no problem, he always trying find new customers, he'll probably buy me a drink afterwards." he said with a chuckle and roll of his shoulders.

As they came to the park entrance, Sabine felt a twinge in her stomach. "You know, we've only known each other for like, a day, why would you be willing to help me out?" In her experience, people rarely were just compassionate for no reason, they usually wanted something, and while she hoped for this, it seemed to come to easy. "Why help us?"

As they crossed the threshold to the park, Robert shifted his shoulders, like her was trying to get comfortable in a non-existent chair. "You know, why not, I mean it don't cost me nothing, and you've be decent to me, and if your friends are like you it don't bother me to recommend you to another friend if it helps both of you out, ya know, it'll help some people in need and give my buddy some business."

That wasn't exactly the response she was expecting, but if he was being honest, and she had a feeling he was, it was a great turn of events "Well, we'll owe you one at any rate."

"Nah, friends don't owe, friends do because they want to, not because they want something back."

Another response she wasn't expecting. "Rocco, you are one of a kind you know that?" she said smirking at him.

"Yeah, that's what my mama always told me." he said smiling down at her.

The park was not anything spectacular, it was nice enough, but didn't have any of the spectacular flora some worlds were known for. But it has nice paved walk ways, which Robert explained he used on his runs.

"Yeah, it's a nice place to run, but soon I won't be able to, they don't plow here in the winter, after that I have to use back roads." he gestured as he talked, she had noticed he spoke with hands a great deal.

They had walked through most of the park and neared the opposite side. There was a cart sitting near it with a man standing in front of it. She could smell food, and immediately could tell it was mobile food stand.

"Hey you want something to eat? I could eat, you know, been out walking a lot, come on let's grab something."

"Oh no, I really shouldn't, kind of tight on money right now." she didn't like admitting it, but the crew was low on credits and she wasn't going to spend it on something non-essential.

"Ahh, don't worry about it, I got it." he said jerking his head towards the stand.

"Oh, really you don't have to."

"Nah, it's okay, come on." he said jerking towards the stand.

Sabine hadn't known Robert long, but she considered herself a good judge of character, and he seemed like the type who once he got a thought in his head, their wasn't really much dissuading him. Besides if he wanted to do something nice, she could survive it.

The stand was selling a type sweet cake she wasn't familiar with, but looked like a thousand other types of sweets that could be found anywhere in the galaxy. But they tasted good none the less and they were big enough to make a small meal.

They ate as they walked out of the park into the city. As they continued to chat, Sabine couldn't help but smile at Robert's manner of speaking. His accent and hand gestures made him incredibly entertaining to watch while he was talking about something that excited him.

However Sabine keep getting distracted by a repeating poster she keep seeing plastered all over the city. They showed two men in the same boxing gear Robert and the Trandorshan had been wearing the other night and they were posed in fighting positions. They had writing on them, but she didn't have time to read them as they passed "Hey Rocco what are all these posters for " she said as she came to a stop to finally read one.

"Oh those are for the title match at the end of the year." he said as he came to a stop beside her.

Now she read the names on the poster. The taller and thinner of the two, a dark skin man with a well groomed mustache with the name "Markus Weathers" and the shorter but broader of the two with a cleanly shaven head and face named "Walter Shaw."

Examining the poster, she could tell that Weathers was the current champion, boasting a record of 47-0-0. She didn't know much about boxing specifically, but she knew the general scoring system generally used in competitive sports, meaning Weathers have never lost or tied with any one of his fights in his professional carrier. Shaw had a record of 42-0-3, meaning he also never out right lost, but had tied a few opponents.

Robert looked in as well. "Yeah, they've been promoting that fight for weeks now, and it ain't even for a few months, they really want to sell it up."

Sabine looked at the records again. "What's your record Rocco?"

Rolling his shoulders, Robert seemed uncomfortable "57-23-2." he said fairly quickly, but Sabine caught it. You didn't have to be an expert to know that wasn't exactly and impressive record, for every two fights he won, Rocco lost one. He won more than he lost but looking at the records of the two heavyweights competing in the Championship match, it wasn't nearly as impressive.

"How? I saw you fight, you could send just about anyone to the mate with one of your punches?" she said a bit shocked.

"You saw me, I move like a damn ape, the fights I lost were on decision, not on knock outs. My trainer says I'm too easy to figure out, once they figure me out, they just stay out of my reach, I'm pretty short for my weight class so it's not that hard to do." he said, clearly not enjoying explaining his short comings.

Sabine nodded in understanding. Sensing how uncomfortable he was she switched the subject. "Are you going to the match?"

Robert shook his head "Nah I can't afford it, even low class tickets run higher than I can afford, I'm just gonna catch it at the bar."

C hanging the subject again to avoid any further conversations that could potentially be awkward, Sabine continue "So, what's next and 'Rocco's Grand Tour of Creed?'"

Robert snorted a laugh. "Well there is this art museum we could check out if your into that sort of thing. I only go there for the steps, I run up them to build my stamina, but if you want to check out ..."

He'd hit the nail on the head, even if it was unintentional. Sabine was a graffiti artist, but she appreciated most forms of art, and she had no idea there was an art museum in city, granted she hadn't really looked.

This day was turning out very productive, not only had she potentially found some place that could actually hold her interest, but had likely found a cheaper source of parts for the ship. "Of course I'd love to go there!" she said a voice slightly more elevated than she intended.

"Wow, guess you really have a thing for art, alright, it's this way." he said gesturing with his head up the street.

When Robert had told her about and Art museum, she didn't know exactly what she was expecting, but this place was far nicer than she imagined. It did indeed have a large series of steps leading to the building proper, and she could see just by walking up them you could get a good run in on them.

And the building was much bigger than she expected, with several wings and display areas, it had a pretty big selection to look at.

The antique section held only marginal appeal to her, it was interesting, but she was more excited to see the modern art installations, with bizarre sculptures and colorful painting.

"Wow this place is great!" Sabine said in an excited tone.

"You're really into this art stuff aren't ya?" Robert said is a slightly confused voice. He didn't get art, sure he liked to look at it, but only in passing, like when it was on the street. He could barely stand just looking at art as a sole purpose of an outing, but he had offered to bring Sabine here so that meant having to wait until he was content to leave.

This however, he had not anticipated Sabine's desire to see every piece in the building, then go back and look some of her favorites. This turned out to take them right up to closing time.

As they were shuffled out into the twilight of the outside, Robert looked at his watch." Well it's gettin' late, I think it's time we got you back."

Sabine was surprised at how much time she had spent in the museum. "Aww, sorry I took up the whole day." she said rubbing the back of her head, a bit embarrassed at having gotten caught up in her own interests.

"Nah, it's alright, I offered to bring ya here." he said producing another cigarette from his coat pocket and lighting it."Come on let's get going before it gets too late."

The walk back to the shuttle depot was uneventful, filled with nonsense chatting two people usually had when just killing time.

As they neared the shuttle schedule to check the time, this time it was a half hour before the next shuttle.

Robert snuffed out his cigarette and tossed it in a nearby trash can "Well, we got some time before your ride shows up, wanna get somthin' to drink?"

Sabine was a bit taken aback, she didn't drink, besides not being old enough, she didn't like what it did to people, she'd seen how alcohol could make people act. "No thanks Rocco, I'm only seventeen, I can't even drink legally yet."

"Whoa, I didn't mean anything like that, I meant a cafe or something. I'm barely old enough to drink myself, and I figured you were younger than me." he shuffled his feet "So, you wanna?"

Sabine blushed a bit at jumping to conclusions. "Sure, sorry for.."

Robert waved his hand cutting her off, indicating it was no big deal. "Come on there's this place right around the corner." he said gesturing with his hands. Sabine noticed Robert's eye cut to her left, for second. It was only a fraction of second but she picked it up. She turned to look, but saw nothing. Robert grabbed her shoulder and lead her down street.

"Rocco, what's wrong, did you see something?" she was more than a bit concerned. Always lurking at the back of her mind was being discovered, and she worried Robert may of spotted an imperial tailing her.

"Nothing dangerous, just watch your pockets until I say otherwise." he whispered to her.

That got her attention, and while he didn't elaborate at that moment, she thought she knew what he meant, a pick-pocket. Not dangerous in the traditional sense, but a sure fire way to ruin your day. As they rounded the corner, Robert pulled her against the wall, till they were flat against the wall.

They waited for a couple seconds, then in a lightning quick motion, Robert grabbed a short figure as the round the corner and slammed it into the wall, while the unknown figure screeched in surprise.

"You wanna try an' steal from me?! You picked the wrong guy!" Robert shouted as he held the culprit to the wall with one hand and holding the other in a fist to the culprits face, a face Sabine recognized.

"Rocco wait!" she shouted grabbing his fist before he could hit its target. "Ezra how long have you be following us?"

Ezra gave guilty smile as he was lowered to the ground. "Ummm, sense you got off the shuttle this morning?"

"Rocco you can put him down, he's not going steal anything." Sabine said while thinking at the same time "this time."

"Wow, I didn't know there was anyone following us until after the museum, your pretty sneaky kid, sorry for you know almost breaking your jaw." Robert lowered Ezra onto the ground " So Sabine is this like your little brother or something?"

Sabine thought on it for a minute "Or something . Rocco, sorry but I have to take the little spy home, we'll get the cafe another time okay?"

Robert put his hand up showing it was no problem. "Sure sure, how about we meet up same time day after tomorrow, I got a job to do tomorrow."

"Sure thing Rocco." Sabine said starting to lead Ezra back towards the shuttles.

"Yeah, I'll call my buddy tonight, see about those parts, I'll tell you how it goes when we meet up again."

"That'd be great, thanks Rocco, see you then." she said as she lead Ezra away.

After they were a decent distance away, Sabine turned Ezra around "What the hell was that, you followed me the entire day! I am so mad at you right now, Kanan and Hera are going hear about this!" she not quiet shouted at him.

"Come on Sabine, I was just...worried, you said the guy was basically a thug, I just wanted to make sure nothing happened!" he said defensively.

Sabine shoved him towards the shuttle landing pad. "I can handle myself Ezra you know that as well as anyone." she wasn't buying his excuse, and she was fairly certain what the real reason was. She knew he had a crush on her, he wasn't as subtle about it as he thought.

Before she could make any statement to that effect Ezra continued. "Sabine, the guy is an idiot, he can barely speak basic, which would make sense if he was a Wookiee."

"Leave him alone Ezra, he may not be...extremely bright, but if you really have been following us, you know that he said he's put us in contact with his friend at the retirement yard."

"Yeah, he knows a guy, Sabine, everyone 'knows a guy' who just so happens to be the solution a pretty girls problem..." Ezra stopped mid sentence, realizing what he just said.

"Really Ezra? Look, I'm not interested in Rocco that way, I'm not interested in anyone that way." she figured this was the nicest way to tell him how she felt without outright crushing him. "Rocco's nice and he's fun to hang around with, but I'm not looking for a relationship, and he might just be our ticket off this planet."

That seemed to end the conversation and the two sat in silence until the shuttle arrived. Walking onto the shuttle, they still said nothing.

For Sabine, the next day passed in a blur as she waited to see Robert again and find out about the parts. It was always sitting at the back of her mind, like a phantom always making her anxious to find out if this plan had bore any fruit.

Kanan, as she had expected, was not pleased with Ezra's little excursion, and as a result, had been given sanitation duty around the ship for the next month.

As the day came when she was supposed to meet Robert again came, she couldn't help but feel a bit excited and a bit apprehensive. This could be there break, or it could be for nothing. Soon she would know. Kanan and Hera were impressed at how quickly the idea had progressed, they had only half expected it to work, and even they the expected at least a couple weeks before anything came of it.

As Sabine got off the shuttle, she again noticed Robert waiting in the same outfit she'd seen him in the last two time, again with a cigarette in his mouth, waving her over. She privately wondered if he owned only one set of clothes or if he just only bought one type of clothing.

"Hey Sabine, look I got good news and bad news for ya, which one you want first?"

"Oh jeez, good news I guess." she said shrugging with the decision.

"Yeah okay, my buddy, Pauli, that's his name by the way, said he'd be more than willing to make a deal with you and your friends." he said taking a puff on his cigarette.

"Okay, and the bad news?" she asked, knowing that if what they had wanted had all but been guaranteed, there had to be some new development.

"New Imperial overseer for the yard, and this guy don't just take cuts, he's an old fashioned extortionist, that means the price on whatever parts you need are gonna be more expensive, I told him your general problem, and he gave me an estimate on the what parts you may need. He told me it's gonna cost between 15,000 and 40,000 credits." he finished taking another puff from his cigarette.

Sabined sighed, well it wasn't great news, but even the high end price was far cheaper what that black market dealer wanted.

Robert pulled out a small data pad "Here's his contact information, if you or your pilot wanna contact him about a time to head over, you just gotta tell him you're the guys I was asking about."

"Sure thing, let me just send this to my crew real quick..." she said forwarding the information to the Ghost.

"Alright, so how about that caf?" Sabine said.

"Sure sure, so long as your little brother doesn't try to rob me again." Robert said smirking as they headed off to the caf shop.

But something was off about Robert, she could quiet place her finger on it, but she couldn't help but feel something else was sitting on his mind. Assuming it was something to do with parts, she decided to leave it be until the end of the day, if he had a reason to keep something secret, or was at least apprehensive about reveling it, she'd give him the day to bring it out on his own, if not, she'd try and press the issue.

The day had been slightly more eventful than the previous, not counting their encounter with Ezra. After the Caf shop, Robert had shown her his boxing gym, and it had certainly been..interesting. It was owned and run by a tiny old man who seemed to have his volume stuck on shout, and did so in an extremely gravelly voice, and seemed to use terms like "bum" and "son of a bitch" as terms of affection rather than detriment. Sabine didn't think she'd ever really meet someone quiet like that before, and frankly she found him highly entertaining. But she couldn't doubt he knew what he was doing, every boxer was, as far as she could tell, in excellent condition.

After that Robert brought her to his favorite restaurant, which was surprisingly good given the lower end of dining spectrum it fell in.

They ended the day with the walk back to the depot through the park again.

As they neared the station Robert said. "Yo, Sabine, can I ask you something?"

His tone was much more serious than the normal light hearted tone he normally used. In the three days she'd known him, Robert didn't seem one to take thing to seriously, granted it wasn't a long time to know someone, given his reaction to being pelted with trash after winning his match, she didn't think anything short of a total disaster or life altering decision could affect him.

But at the same time she was expecting this. She thought he hadn't been completely honest with her about what he had told her in the morning. She was generally good at picking up when someone wasn't telling the whole truth. She had been expecting to have to draw it out of him, but she was glad he was doing it on his own.

"Sure thing Rocco, what is it?" she said, slightly worried of the response she'd get.

"If you were given a shot at your dream, something you wanted all your life, even if it was the longest shot possible, and you were almost certainly going to had your brains bashed in, would you take it?"

That was not what Sabine was expecting, what's more it was just a generally weird or at least unusual thing to ask. "Rocco.. what happened?"

Robert rolled his shoulders uncomfortably. "The other night after you and your brother left, I went back to my apartment and someone was waiting." he paused. "Apparently Walter Shaw broke his hand in a training accident, and one of Weathers agents offered me a shot to fill his spot in that big title match you've been seeing advertised all over the city." Robert gestured around to add emphasis to his point.

Sabine was shocked, she didn't know much of anything about Boxing, but she was certain that they didn't replace top contenders with guys who fought on the lowest end of the spectrum. As much as she liked Robert, she knew he competed on the low end of the local level and frankly had an inadequate record. "Why you, I mean no offense Rocco, but aren't there other top contenders who they asked?"

Robert shrugged "I asked the same thing, but they told me a bunch of reason, ultimately leaving no top contenders available, they decided to go with a gimmick instead. You known giving the little man, the underdog a chance at the big shot. I think they picked me at random, or because I'm a local, maybe both, I don't know." he finished rolling his shoulder.

"Well you go for it." Sabine said. "Even if it's a long shot, isn't this what you always wanted? A shot at the big leagues? Most people don't ever get a shot like that Rocco." she said putting a hand on his shoulder.

"Yeah, but Sabine have you ever seen Weathers fight? That guy is insane, he'll take me apart in the first three rounds." he said, clearly dismayed, and Sabine now thought she understood. He had a shot at his dream, something everyone wanted , but his problem was clear, he didn't think he stood a chance. To him it was almost a cruel joke, having it dangled in front of him, but never in his reach.

"Rocco, you have to take it, even if it's a long shot." she began "If you don't, you'll regret it for the rest of your life."

"That's the thing, I know that, and I'm scared." he said his voice cracking, making Sabine step back. "I either say yes, and get beat into oatmeal or say no and spend the rest of my life wondering what if."

He stopped and rubbed his temples, "Sorry for laying that all on ya, it's just, I kinda needed to say something to someone."

"It's alright Rocco, it's your choice, but I know a thing or two about living with regrets, and I really think you should take it, even if it's a long shot."

The shuttle came and Sabine got ready to get on it. "Look Rocco, just go home and sleep on it, I'll meet you here tomorrow okay?" she said gripping his shoulder.

"Yeah, sure thing he said turning and walking way."

As Sabine entered the Ghost, she was surprised only to find Hera sitting at the table. "Hey Hera, did you get the info I sent you?" she asked, grabbing a drink from the fridge.

"Yes I did Sabine, and I have to say, I'm surprised at how helpful this new friend of yours has been." she said taking a sip from her own drink. "Contacted this guy and gave him a list of the parts we need, and it's better than what the other guy was asking, but it's still too expensive."

Sabine heart fell, she had hoped the Robert's contact would be their ticket off this planet. "But I thought you said..." she began.

Hera raised her hand to stop her from speaking "He was helpful and he has been, the price is out of our current range, but it's going to be much more manageable to get the extra credits we need for this guy than for the other."

Well it wasn't good news, or really bad, sort of grey news if she thought about it. Hera continued "We'll be here for a while, but it won't be as long as we originally thought, we just have find a way to make some extra credits. It may not be the solution we were looking for but were are much closer than before."

While thinking on this comment, Sabine remembered something from the night she meet Robert. A potential solution to their credit problems.

She had noticed the night she meet Robert that a lot of money changed hands on bets. She wasn't much of a gambler, but she knew it was one of quickest ways to make money without taking a loan or outright stealing. A big title match was sure to have large pools and huge pay outs for those who knew where to make bets. Robert was a huge underdog, even in his club fights, even a small bet on him could have a huge pay out if they correctly bet on him.

This was a good idea in concept. But Sabine had reservations about this idea.

There was the fact she wasn't sure Robert could win. She was confident in his abilities as a straight up fighter and brawler having seen him fight, but in a actual, high profile, much more technical fight, he by his more admittance wasn't a good technical fighter. He could only hope to win by knockout, not on points, and she, while hating to admit it, doubted Robert could knockout an undefeated titlist.

But she was getting ahead of herself. Robert himself wasn't even guaranteed to fight, he was still uncertain about it he was going to do it or not. Without even that, this line of thought wasn't much good at all. For now she'd keep this to herself, and see what came of Robert's decisions.

"Well Hera, I guess we'll take what we can get right now, did you get an exact price on the parts?" she asked.

Hera responded with a curt "35,000."

Sabine winced slightly at this, it wasn't the highest estimate Robert had given her, but it was close enough."Well, it's still way lower than what that shyster wanted."

Hera didn't respond, only nodded in agreement.

Sabine though on their situation "Better but not fixed." she thought to herself, that seemed to sum up their situation pretty well, because even if these part's were cheaper, it didn't really matter that they were,35,000 credits, 50,000, 77,000 or 100,000, it still came down to the fact that right now they couldn't afford it.

But at least now it was in range. Even if they all had to get normal jobs to pay for it, they could. It may not be easy, but they had found that many times things weren't. They could do it, so long as it was possible, they could do it.

Sabine went to her cabin and got ready for bed. Today had been one of the more stressful days she had experienced in recent memory that didn't involve actual combat. What was more, for all of it, they had very little concrete progress to show for it.

The parts were within reach now ,but still not immediately available. Then there was Robert laying his own problems on her. She could sympathize with his dilemma, it seemed to parallel theirs in some ways. Having something so close, but seemingly out of reach.

But she couldn't shake the idea that maybe this was fate. If she placed a bet on Robert, and he won, both he and the crew of the Ghost would get what they wanted and needed. Maybe she was meant to meet Robert, maybe he would win the title.

Maybe she thinking too much into this and it was just a coincident. She knew Kanan didn't believe in coincident, but she was more skeptical. She thought sometimes things happened for a reason, other times , more often than not, it was either dumb luck.

Rubbing her temples, Sabine tried to clear her head to get some sleep. Tomorrow she was going to try and convince Robert to take his shot. Maybe he wasn't the best betting option, but he was a known quantity for her, someone she knew and could gauge better than any other potential betting option that may turn up if Robert refused.

Lying down in her bunk, Sabine closed her eyes, and went to sleep.

The next day, Sabine found Robert in his usual spot waiting for her. His battered face seemed more relaxed than the last time she had seen it, granted the fact that it was so bruised and swollen made it fairly hard to correctly guess how her felt on facial expression alone.

She noticed that this time he wasn't smoking one of his cigarettes. It was more the lack of the smell than any visual cues that made her realize this.

"Hey Rocco, you feel any better?" She figured this was the best way to bridge the subject. She knew he'd know what she was talking about.

Robert didn't verbally respond right away, only nodding at first before saying "Yeah, actually I thought on what ya said last night." Robert rubbed the back of his head like he was ashamed of how he had acted. "Your right , most people don't ever get a chance like this, I shouldn't moan about how I don't have a chance, even if it's true, I gotta take my shot."

Well Sabine wasn't sure how to feel about this. She had thought, given his attitude the previous night, he was certain to not even try. "So Rocco, does that mean you're going to take the chance?" Sabine felt like she knew the answer.

"I gave Weather's people a call last night, I told them I'd do it."

Well at least that part of the equation was solved, Robert was going to fight. Now, if she was going follow the betting idea, she needed to know the odds, but those wouldn't even be available until the fight was officially announced.

"Glad to hear it Rocco." she said smiling punching him in the shoulder.

"I gotta get in shape though, that means hard core training and all that." Robert said rolling his shoulders.

"Well Rocco, if you do this, you have to do it at your best, not half-assed." Sabine said with a more serious tone. If it was up to her, he'd train none stop for this, anything to improve his odds, and at the same time improve their odds of getting off this planet.

"Yeah, I know, I know, I'm gonna give it my all, so I'll know that if I lose, at least I did all I could."

Sabine was glad to hear this from him. He maybe a long shot underdog, but he was unknowingly, to either himself or the rest of the crew of the Ghost, her own plan to get the credits they needed to get off this planet.

Well this may not be the greatest plan ever, she felt in her gut that this was more than just a coincident. She felt that this was fate, and destiny had brought this about, and that she had been destined to meet Robert and that he was in his own odd way going to get them off this planet, even if his didn't even realize it.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Star Wars belong to Disney and LucasFilm

A shout out to Superfan44 and whitepreist27, not only for reviewing but for guessing Robert's character inspiration. Rocky Balboa is the inspiration for Robert Bardock, with a little bit of Rocky Marciano thrown in.

This is the longest chapter I've written yet, but is also the one I'm the least certain about. Of all the chapters, if you do decided to review this is the one I need it the most, so please tell me what you think. I'm not getting many reviews, and that's fine, but I would appreciate it on this chapter is you never give me another one.

**Chapter 4**

"Come on Zeb!" Sabine pleaded with the large Lasat. Sabine had told only Zeb her idea for betting on Robert to try and win the credits they needed. She had laid out her points, the potential advantages and fairly low risk involved.

She had done some light research on what the likely odds were going to be, nothing official had been set, but right now Robert was looking like anything from a 7 to 1 and 13 to 1 underdog. While not exactly great odds, it meant that even small bets could result in a large payout.

She had also taken the liberty watch some of Weathers old fights, and Robert hadn't exaggerated. He didn't seem to have Robert's raw power but he moved on feet infinitely better than Robert. Whereas Robert looked borderline drunk trying to move in the fight she had seen, Weathers almost looked like he floated around the ring, easily avoiding hits, and his foot work was phenomenal. What was more concerning to her was how he hit.

His punches weren't block-busters, but she could still tell he hit hard, but he also hit incredibly fast, hitting his opponents between four or five times as much as they hit him. He also, unlike Robert, managed to land everyone of his punches.

The fact that Weathers also had a noticeably longer reach than Robert also didn't exactly make his chances any better. Robert's initial description of his abilities seemed pretty spot on, he could take a hit and throw hard punches, that was about all he had over Weather, and even then, only his punching power was a certain edge, she had yet to see Weathers actually get seriously hurt in a fight.

This all brought her to Zeb. She had been trying to convince Zeb spar with Robert to try and get him used to fighting nimble and taller opponents. Robert had some sparing partners that she had seen, but none of them fought in a way that Weathers did, they fought more like Robert, granted even they were much more graceful than him.

But most of his sparing partners were his height and have the energetic movement of Weathers. She would exactly call Zeb the most graceful person she'd ever seen when going about his daily business, but when in a fight he could move in very surprising ways for someone his size. Lasat were naturally very nimble and excellent on their feet. Zeb could move on ways most humans never could when he was actually paying attention to what he was doing.

"I don't know Sabine, I don't even know if betting on this guy is a good idea at all. You said his record was really bad, and this Weathers fella hasn't ever lost a fight."

Sabine sighed. It wasn't exactly hard to get Zeb to fight, what she was having a problem with was convincing him that this plan stood a chance of working and that it wouldn't be waste of time for him to try and help. This was only reason she had told him over anyone else.

"Zeb, if you saw how hard he hit, you'd give him more credit. He just needs to work on his foot work, and you're the better on your feet than anyone else I know." seasoning a little flattery in would hurt he cause either. Strictly speaking, she thought Kanan was more sure footed, but she was going to chalk that one up to the force.

Zeb didn't give much indication that he had taken the compliment, but Sabine thought she saw a smile twinge at the corner of his mouth.

"Well maybe I could help him out a little, I mean he did help us a little with that pal of his." Zeb said rubbing his chin as if he was thinking more seriously about it than he actually was, but Sabine knew she had him.

"Great, I'll talk to Rocco about, I bet you could teach him a thing or two." and with that Sabine headed towards the shuttle depot to meet Robert.

Today Robert wasn't waiting for her, but that was the plan today. Robert's training regiment required his morning being spent in the gym with the trainers. Sabine planned on meeting him there and bring up Zeb as a training assistant.

The Gym wasn't far from the depot, about a 15 minute walk, but she wasn't used to walking in silence, and this made the walk seem longer than it actually was.

As Sabine approached the door to the gym, she could hear the grunts of men working hard and the sound of gloves impacting heavy bags, pads and protective head gear.

Opening the door Sabine walked in. It only took her a moment to find Robert training in one of the rings set up in the gym. He was currently doing some kind of exercise with a piece of rope, ducking under it and popping up on the other side and jabbing. She had seen him do this one before, it was supposed to help him in dodging and helping with his foot work. Robert's training were well aware that he needed to work in his foot work, but they didn't have any adequate sparing partners for Weather fighting style, so they had resorted to various exercise to try and help him. And Sabine had noted he was starting to stumble less, but still, his foot work was well below what it needed to be. At any rate, he need experience actually using what he learned in a sparring match.

Sabine approached the ring as one of the trainers called time for Robert to stop. Robert stopped and took a water battle from one of the attending trainers, took a mouth full, swished it around in his mouth, the spit it into a nearby bucket.

He looked around for a moment before noticing Sabine. He didn't call her, but waved her over, his mouth full of more water.

"Hey Sabine, what are ya doin' here? I thought we was gonna meet up later today." He said, not bothering to hide his own confusion, and Sabine could tell he thought he had forgotten something.

"Yeah, no, I mean yes, it's just I think I might know someone who can help you with your foot work...ummm problem." She didn't like brining up his problems, it was one thing when he said it, but it felt weird for her to bring it up.

If Robert felt weird about it ,it didn't show on his face he only responded "Yeah? I didn't think you knew any boxers other than me?"

This was where Sabine was apt to get apprehensive, Zeb wasn't a boxer, even if he was a top notch fighter, and Robert might not like the idea of learning something outside his comfort zone.

"Well...he's not, but he's a great fighter and incredibly nimble on his feet, I think he might be able to help you out."

Robert seemed to mull it over in his mind for a second "Ya know what, yeah sure, I mean I might be able to learn somethin' from him if he's a good as you say, I mean I can't get much worse than I am." he said smiling at her.

That was one thing she liked about Robert, he was direct and one way or another, didn't take long for him to make up his mind on something.

"Great, I'll tell him, when do you want him to come."

"Hey the sooner the better, tomorrow if he can."

Sabine laughed, she couldn't ever get used to how easily Robert seemed to handle things and make changes. The one time exception being his shot at the title, even that emotional incident had resolved itself pretty quickly.

Robert spoke up again "Hey, Sabine I got some more to do here, but if you want to hang out or somthin..."

"Yeah, Rocco, I'll meet you at the Caf shop, how long you think you're gonna be?" Sabine didn't mind waiting, but she'd like to know how much time to kill.

Robert rolled his shoulders "Give me another hour, I'll meet ya there."

Sabine nodded "Alright see you then." she said as turned to leave and Robert went back to his exercises.

As weird as it was to think, this was one of Robert's light days. His training had begun in earnest only three days ago, but on a full day work out he spent almost the entire day training in some way. She only ever got to hang out with him on a light day, where he only trained in the morning.

It was weird to think that she missed him on his full days. She hadn't known him long, but she couldn't deny she enjoyed his company. He was funny and charming in his own way, even if his vocabulary wasn't exactly great.

But he was genuine and nice, and if the worst thing that could said about him was his grammar was poor, well she supposed there was much worse shortcomings people could have.

Caught up in her thoughts, Sabine absent mindedly walked in the caf shop, and took a seat to wait for Robert.

"Alright Zeb, now you read the pamphlet I gave you right?" Sabine asked Zeb more than a little concerned. They stood in the gym after closing, Robert and his trainers sitting in the opposite corner, but aside from them the gym was empty.

"Yes, for the fiftieth time, I read it okay, I know how this works, geez." Zeb growled out in an exasperated voice. This was going to be his first time sparing with Robert, and while Zeb had no training in proper boxing, the point was more to get Robert to learn to move correctly against taller and faster opponents, and while Zeb was the ideal partner in terms of actual technique, he was perfect in terms of physicality. Sabine had taken the effort to make a quick rundown of boxing rules and regulations, as well as some basic fighting styles so Zeb could get some basics information.

But she was worried, not about Zeb but Robert. A Trandorshan was one thing, but a Lasat was another story, and Zeb was a true warrior, not a sport fighter.

But even as she started to have second thoughts, Robert walked to the center of the ring to get started, Zeb walking to meet him.

One of the Robert's assistants gave the signal to start, and Sabine was completely unprepared for what happened next.

Zen lunged forward and promptly kicked Robert in the stomach, doubling him over, the proceeded to wrap his arms around Robert's torso, promptly throwing Robert out of the ring an onto the floor outside the ring.

"Yeah!" Zeb shouted raising his hands over his head in triumph and parading around the ring, celebrating his victory as Robert's training ran to help him up.

"Zeb! What the hell!" Sabine shouted, running into the ring then promptly smacking Zeb in the back of his head.

The Laset rubbed his head and stared at her in confusion. "What, this is what you wanted, I'm fightin' him, but I gotta say, you made him sound way better than he is."

"You said you read the notes I gave you!" Sabine shouted into Zeb's face, turning to look at Robert, who thankfully didn't look seriously hurt, but clearly hadn't expected to be attacked in the manner Zeb had.

"Yeah I did...well more like skimmed it, but I got the idea." Zeb said defensively "You gotta beat the guy until he can't get up...right?"

Well at least he had some vague idea of some aspect of the sport, but had clearly ignored any of the other points. Sabine slapped her forehead in exasperation.

"Boxing only involves punching Zeb, no kicking and no throwing anybody out of the ring, or really any throwing at all."

"Ohhhh...opps." Zeb's face only betraying the slightest sign of guilt. "Sorry about that mate, you alright?"

Robert didn't say anything, but waved his hand, shrugging it off.

Robert's trainer, who Sabine had only just learned his name was Michael, Mike for short, came to the side of the ring. "Okay buddy, we're gonna try this again, and this time, try to stay within the rules...okay..think you can do that?" he said in his gravelly voice as Robert walked back into the ring.

Zeb at least seemed to act ashamed of himself as he got ready to try the sparing again.

This time, at least Zeb didn't kick Robert or try to toss his out of the ring. It in fact was going well, all things considered. She watched was Robert tried to work his way in past Zeb's longer reach and trying to keep up with his nimble movements.

Sabine walked over to Mike as he called out tips for both fighters. Now that Zeb understood the point of the sparing, both he and Robert weren't throwing full punches, instead they focused on Robert trying to mimic Zeb's movements and occasional on Mike's random call to try and close in and tap Zeb on the chest.

"I gotta say girly, this is turnin' out better than I thought it would, rocky start aside, this pale of yours has the fight foot work to get Rocco in the right...Watch your feet!" Mike interrupted himself, calling out to Robert who had just stumbled in the ring.

His other training had done some to improve Robert's foot work, but it was still woefully inadequate. Sabine could tell by Zeb's face he wasn't trying very hard to dance out of the way of Robert's punches.

But that was to be expected, the whole point was to get Robert used to going after someone who could out maneuver him.

The sparing went on for another hour before Mike called for a stop. Robert had managed to hit Zeb three times in the chest, but had Zeb had managed to dodge all his other attempt to hit him.

"Okay Rocco, that's enough on sparing for now go work the heavy bag." Mike shouted.

Robert didn't miss a beat and hopped down out of the ring to start his other work out.

Mike turned Sabine and Zeb, "You two can stick around if ya want."

"No thanks, we'll leave you guys to it, come one Zeb." Sabine said leading Zeb towards the door as he pulled off his training gloves.

"Alright, I'll see ya latter then, how about you come by again tomorrow to help Rocco with his foot work?" Mike said to Zeb.

"Yeah sure, not like I have anything else planned." Zeb said trying to act more nonchalant than he really felt.

Sabine had noticed a look in Zeb's eye when he started to spar with Robert, he hadn't even realized it himself at first, but he was bored and missed a good brawl.

As they walked out of the gym and onto the street Sabine turned to Zeb "So what do you think?"

"Well he's nice enough, but I think he's taken to many punches to the head." Zeb said in a aloof tone.

"I meant about how he fight genius." Sabine said smirking while giving Zeb a playful punch in arm.

"Well, I can't really say, he only managed to hit me twice."

"Three times, I counted Zeb."

"Semantics, either way, he hits hard, that's for sure, even his taps felt pretty hard." Zeb paused for a moment "But he needs to move better, like you said, he's never gonna move like me or that other fighter...Weathers was it? But either way, so long as he gets good enough just get in enough hits, well I'd say his has a decent chance."

Well it was what she had expected, if Robert could improve his foot work and speed, he chances went up dramatically. She only hoped Zeb would be able to get Robert to that point.

Robert was at least a quicker learner, a fact that surprised Sabine as she watched him and Zeb spar. They were a week into the sparing sessions and Mike had started on insisting that Zeb start throwing more punches to simulate a real fight. While Robert was very slow to improve his foot work, his defense was much quicker to adapt to this new approach of fighting a faster opponent.

He was quick to guard his head and body, and was actually getting more hits in on Zeb now that he was actually attacking. He was getting used fighting a taller opponent and was learning how to use his shorter height to his advantage. She wasn't sure if Zeb realized it, but Robert sure had, and was hunkering down and bending over forcing Zeb to punch down at him while Robert ducked under his punches and attacked his torso.

Robert's foot work had improved as well, as far as his ability to move more smoothly, but he still didn't seem to move in any real ordered way, his movements seemed almost random, which she supposed could be a good thing, at least he wasn't easy to predict.

"Alright stop!" Mike shouted as Zeb and Robert stopped there sparing. "Okay Rocco, take the rest of day to relax, don't want ya to overdo yourself, hit the showers."

This was one of Robert's light day, even his day of rest involved some sort of work out.

"Hey Robert, I'll wait for you outside alright?"

"Yeah sure, I won't be long."

This was basically their routine on his light days, she'd come watch him and Zeb spar, then they would hang out afterwards. Sometime they spent the entire day together, sometimes it was only a couple of hours, but Sabine was glad for the distraction.

Zeb walked past her, with a smirk on his face the seemed to say he knew something she didn't "Don't stay out to late now!" he said through his smirk.

"Shut up Zeb...I'll see you back at the ship." she said slapping his arm as he walked by.

This made her think of the rest of the crew as she exited the building. Zeb was the only one who actually knew about her plan to bet on Robert, but she felt like Kanan suspected to some degree, and as such, she was certain Hera knew as well. Ezra however has seemed distant, ever sense that night he had spied on her and Robert. She had essentially told him she wasn't interested in him by proxy, and she felt like he was avoiding her either because he was hurt, embarrassed or both.

Lost in her thoughts, she didn't notice Robert coming up behind her. "Yo Sabine, you ready to go?" he said placing his hand on her shoulder.

Sabine jumped, but this time she didn't try to flip him like the first time they had meet. "Yeah sure, where did you want to go?" Sabine wasn't too interested in where they went anymore, Robert had pretty much shown her all he could around the city, it was more for his company now that she spent time with him.

"Yeah, I figured we could take a walk down by the lake, it's pretty warn for this time of the year, it's usually pretty nice so long as it's not too cold out."

"Oh." they hadn't been there before, she assumed the cooler weather was the reason, given that it did seem much warmer today than it had sense they had arrived on the planet. "Sure, sounds nice."

"So Sabine, you gotta tell me." he said as they set off "Where did you meet Zeb?" he's one tough fighter, I gotta say, and your little brother is one sneaky little fella, do ya only associate with shady characters, such as myself." he said in a tone the made it clear he was joking, but he had no idea how close to the truth he was.

"Well...I guess you could say Zeb is sort of like my...uncle?" she said raising her shoulders in a half shrug.

She could tell Robert was confused by the look on his face. "And Ezra isn't exactly my brother." she figured now was as good a time as any to clear any of this up, but she could tell she was just confusing him without providing context.

They continued walking as Sabine explained. "They aren't my family biologically Rocco, we all live on the ship together, share everything, including ups and downs, Ezra and Zeb are like family to me..." she trailed off trying to think of a better way to explain it. Before she could however, Robert interrupted.

"Okay, that I get, Mike is like a father to me, that I understand, no need to explain much more to me. Sometimes family is more than blood ya know? I think I get where ya coming from. Just kinda wished ya told be sooner, I kinda feel like a doap for jumpin' to conclusion on it." she said smiling, Sabine realized he was poking fun at her, making her smile.

She was worried that he might ask her what happened to her real family, but either the thought didn't occur to him or he thought it might be a touchy subject because he didn't push the issue.

She was thankful that he didn't, having to explain her past was not something she wanted to do. Not because she didn't trust Robert, but because she would either have to lie to him or reveal more information than would be safe to have out.

The rest of the walk didn't involve any more conversations of substance, more chewing the fat than anything important. The lake was nice however, and Sabine had wished she had visited it sooner, she need to see more than just cityscapes all the time and it was refreshing see some of the natural world for a change. The Lake was very large, so large Sabine could barely make out the opposite shore, with waves rolling across its surface, and if she hadn't known for a fact it was a lake, at first glance she might of thought it was an ocean.

"Yeah I always come here to think when I've had a busy or rough day ya know? Something about the water helps me think, calm me down and all that stuff, been too cold to come here lately, but this warm snap, I don't know, figured I might as well come by while I can, don't know when I'll get another chance.

Sabine could understand, if she knew she wasn't going to get many more chances at something she enjoyed, she'd take it whenever she could. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath, smelling the lake. The air seemed cleaner her than in the other parts of the city, maybe it was in her head, but it was certainly a nice thought. She felt content to just stand here with her eyes closed, listening to the water, smelling the fresh air, and just relaxing.

Three Weeks later

Sabine didn't know it was possible to feel contented and frustrated at the same. On one hand she wanted off this planet. She hadn't been in any singular location for this long ever sense she joined the Ghost. Even if Lothol had been a frequent stop on their travels, they were always on the go.

She was also none too thrilled with Kanan's recent insistence of them all getting part time jobs to help pay for food and other expenses. Sabine had gotten a job busing tables at a local restaurant. Needless to say, it didn't exactly make her feel like queen for a day.

But she'd made a friend, a good friends here. Robert was, as she had correctly guessed, one of a kind. Ezra was right, he wasn't very bright, but he was honest and friendly, and in his own stupid way, charming.

She spent almost every day off they both had with him, which was frankly the only way for this planet to hold any real fun after more than a month.

However, he was much more intense than when she had first meet him. After getting over his initial despair at the title shot he simultaneously dreamed about and dreaded, and had decided that he had his shot, and he was going to take it. The longer this mind set went on, the more Sabine noticed it, in part because of the fact she didn't see him for days at a time, but also in his physicality.

Robert had severally stepped up his training ever sense he decided to agree to the fight, where he was before only staying in fighting shape, now he was working like a mad man to get into the best shape possible, and Sabine was starting to notice even in just two weeks it was starting to have an effect on him, and it had Sabine looking at him in a different light, going from a fairly normal if in good shape individual to a near super athlete.

It didn't help her mindset when she accidently walked in on him changing after a training session. or the fact Zeb was present at the time either. She had been looking for the bathroom, but had taken a right instead of a left and wound up walking into the locker room instead of the restroom. Robert wasn't naked, thank goodness, but he was in his underwear, which was close enough that Sabine turned crimson red and bolted out and ran back into the gym and out the front door before she stopped. Robert had been turned at an angle with his head down pulling his clothes out of his gym bag, so Sabine was fairly sure he didn't see her. Unfortunately Zeb had, and didn't miss a chance to razz her about it whenever he could.

Besides being embarrassing, it wasn't exactly easy for Sabine to look at Robert quiet the same way once you saw them exposed like that, it was like seeing them fully exposed, and Robert very nearly was.

The injuries to his face healing had also helped to make him seem like he was transforming. Where his face was once bruised and swollen, it had gone back to its natural shape and color. Purple, blue, black and yellow had faded back into the fair skin complexion he naturally had.

And she had to say...he wasn't going to win any beauty contests even with a fully intact face. He wasn't ugly, and she would admit he had he own unique look to him that she did find pleasing in its own fashion, but he certainly wasn't handsome by traditional human standards. Even fully healed his face still had the impression of someone who had been in a fight, at least in undertones. His eyes had a puffy quality around them, nothing that stood out dramatically, but something someone spent a lot of time with his could pick up on. He had a strong jaw that looked like it was capable of taking all the punishment that it in fact did. His nose was a bit larger than average and slightly hooked, but it surprisingly did not look like it had ever been broken. It had in fact never been broken, which was something Robert was very proud of.

All these things passed through Sabine's head as she walked to Robert's gym, which become a sort of ritual on days they could actually hang out.

Even on his light days, he spent six hours in the gym every morning with his trainers and wasn't up for much afterwards, so their normal routine now had become walks around the city, or occasional the lake if the weather was warm enough.

Today, Robert was outside waiting for her instead of inside the gym. He waved to her and with one hand, while pulling a packed of chewing gum out of his jacket pocket and popping it into his mouth. The gum had taken the place of the tobacco ever sense he started training, which Sabine was happy to see. Not only did it help him physically, but she really did not enjoy the smell of smoke when he did. He wasn't exactly a chain smoker when he did, but it still bothered her.

"Hey Rocco, how'd the training go this morning?"

"Good, good, I gotta tell ya, I feel better about my chances every day." he said chewing loudly, holding out the pack, offering her a piece.

Sabine smiled "That's good, I gotta say, I'm impressed by how much you've done and changed sense you started getting ready for this fight." she said taking a piece of gum from the package. It was an honest compliment, but she didn't share his optimism in his chances. She'd finally had a look at the official odds set out. Robert was currently a 10 to 1 underdog, a long shot by any stretch of the imagination, which was about what she had figured they would be.

Her mind wondered back to her own private idea on how to get the money for the Ghost parts. Paulie currently was asking 35,000 credits for the parts they needed. Not counting what they needed for other expenses they had 15,000 credits to spend. A bet and a win on Robert would certainly get them over the needed amount, but a win was a long shot, but they wouldn't have to risk the whole lot of the money, just 2,000 credits would be at risk. And if he lost they really wouldn't be that much worse off than before.

Betting on Weathers simply wasn't an option. Besides the fact she couldn't even begin to think of the idea of betraying Robert like that, Weathers was too much of a favorite to get the amount they needed. Even betting every credit they had on him wouldn't get the needed funds.

There were other bet's to be made, no event ever just had win/lose bets. There were bets on how long the fight would last, who would land the first punch, how many times either would be knocked down, if the fight would end in a knock out and so on.

Sabine hadn't had time to look at all the others odds for the fight, but she already knew the Robert "Going the Distance" against Weathers was another high pay out bet, and frankly significantly more likely to happen, even if the one's making the odds didn't think so. Aside from the fact Robert could take a beating par none, he never really seemed to get tired. He couldn't run extremely fast, but he could run a long time, Sabine had found out the previous week when she offered to go on a run with him.

She considered herself in excellent shape, she was a trained Mandolorian, and she did outpace him at first, but about five miles in she started to slow down, where as Robert continued at his same speed. At another five miles he was keeping pace with her, and when they finished the fifteen miles he had pulled ahead and she was winded. Robert was breathing heavy but it was clear he wasn't feeling fatigue like she was.

If this was any indication to his stamina, he may not beat Weathers, but he stood a decent chance of last the full fifteen rounds with him.

"Yo, Sabine." Robert said snapping her out of her thoughts.

"Sorry." Sabine said blushing at her own wandering mind, something she found herself doing more and more often the more she tried to think about how to remedy the Ghost's situation.

"Come on, let's go for a walk in the park, I gotta talk to ya about somthin'."

That surprised her, normally Robert just went with the flow and when they hung out, they basically wondered with no real set plan, only occasionally making a planned destination.

The Park was deserted, and Sabine thought she knew why. They were nearing the end of Baffop's year, which marked colder seasons and shorter days. People who lived on temperate planets tended to prefer the warmed season and stayed inside in the colder. Sabine didn't mind the cold, and in fact liked it, it somehow made her feel cleaner, like the air wasn't stifling. Robert seemed immune to the temperature as well, but he got up every morning to run, so he presumably was simply just tolerant of it.

After scanning their surrounding for a moment, Sabine turned to Robert. "Okay Rocco, we're here what did you want to talk about?"

Sabine had known Robert long enough to be able to read his physical motions pretty well, and she could tell by the way he had his hands in his pocket and they way he shuffled his feet he was nervous.

"Yeah, okay, so it's like this. We've been palin' around for what, near two months now?"

Sabine didn't answer, she just nodded her head slightly. It had actually be closer to a month and a half, but she wasn't about to make that a point when there was clearly something he needed to get off his chest.

"Well here's the thing, the thing is, well, I kinda , sorta, maybe a little bit, like you a whole lot, in ya know more than a friend sorta way."

Now Robert's pattern of speech wasn't always the easiest to understand, but Sabine understood that.

"Ohh, Robert..." she liked Robert, she did. But she didn't think she could like him like that. Granted the thought hadn't even crossed her mind sense her fight with Ezra more than a month ago. It wasn't that he was bad looking, he wasn't, granted he wasn't exactly handsome either. It wasn't that he wasn't a good guy, he was, even if he was kind of dopey. But he didn't know what she really was, a wanted criminal and rebel. "I don't think..."

Robert interrupted her, continuing. "I know I ain't smart or nothin', or got much money, but I don't know, I feel like, in my gut ya know, that...I'm not too good with words, I just, man I'm screwin' this up ain't I."

Sabine was surprised, in that she didn't feel much surprise at all for his confession. Now that it was out, she felt like she should of known how he felt. By her own admission he was pretty near the surface in terms of thoughts and emotions. But she didn't want it to be there, so she had ignored it. All the time they spent together, his willingness to show her around the city, spending all their time together, she admitted to herself she probably should of at least suspected he liked her.

But the worst part was, she realized in that instant he confessed, she two, liked him, maybe more than a friend. And that was hard to handle, she didn't want to like anyone, not that way, not now, it was to much to deal with and would only end poorly.

Had she been who she had presented herself as, she was pretty certain she'd accept his confession and the implication it brought. But she wasn't, and she couldn't. She had family on the Ghost, and to be with Robert, she'd have to leave them, stay here with him, and she couldn't.

Her heart raced as he looked into her eyes. "Robert..." she began. "I'm not staying here for long, remember? The ship will be fixed soon." Not a real lie, soon enough, one way or another, they'd have the parts.

"I know it live like a bum." he said. It wasn't an exaggeration, she'd seen his apartment, everything was literally in one slightly larger than average room, it didn't even have a refresher, Robert had to use the gyms showers. She had also noted that he avoided the point she had made on her residency only being temporary.

"It's not that Robert." and it really wasn't, her previous explanation had been close enough to the truth she didn't need to elaborate on why, she'd be gone soon, and if they gave a relationship a got, she was going to just leave, and she new visits would be rare at the absolute best and if she was realistic, never.

Before Sabine could think of another response, Robert leaned in, and gently placed his lips on hers. Nothing more than a quick kiss, nothing extravagant, but it felt like when the sun managed to come out from behind the clouds and you felt it on your face.

Now Sabine have never really believed in love at first sight, or electric touches. Until now, and she hated it, she didn't want, and she loved it, didn't want it to stop.

She tried to push him away, but only managed to stumble herself backwards, he was even more solid than she remembered, and all she had to show for it was she was falling backwards, and she would of hit the ground, if Robert didn't move to catch her.

She looked into his eyes for a second, and looked away almost instantly. She didn't want to like him, even if she was pretty certain that she did. Nothing could really develop, she had a plan, she was going to get the credits for the parts and they would leave. Leaving Robert on Baffop to his own devices.

Then in the next moment her ice cold logic was replaced with fiery hot emotion, like a switch had been flipped in her head. Why not? She could die young in her life as an active fighter against the Empire. Did she want to die and not know romantic love? If this was what it felt like, even in the smallest portions, then no, she wanted to experience it, even if it was short lived.

"Rocco...alright... I mean...I guess we could..." normally Robert had trouble finding words, not her, but she was flustered." I mean, I guess, we can give it a shot."

"Oh ya serious?! Yo thanks Sabine I promise, I'll be a good one." He said leaning in this time kissing her on the cheek.

Wrapping his arm around her he pulled her close. Sabine hadn't realized how cold she had really felt until she started sharing his body heat. He started leading her towards the other end of the park, like on the first day they had spent together, Sabine realized it may of their first date.

"You know I knew this would happen from the first moment I meet ya." Robert stated.

"You did?" Sabine said both laughing and feeling a bit confused, if she recalled correctly, and she did, the first time they meet she had inadvertently thrown him onto the ground when he had accidently snuck up on her.

"Yeah, I said to myself, I said 'Even though this girl just threw me onto the concrete' this here is the best girl in the galaxy." he finished with a smile.

Sabine was a bit surprised by this, Ezra had apparently correctly guessed he was interested in her the whole time, but at least he hadn't been inappropriate or even tried anything until now. She thought for a moment that she should apologize to Ezra about snapping at him over it, before dismissing the idea, remembering that Ezra still hadn't behaved properly at the time and she was justified at being mad at him.

As they walked, Sabine thought, she was happy, but she knew it couldn't last, but she thought it would be worth it if she felt this happy even for half the time they had together. She didn't exactly have to many happy memories to draw on in her life, so when would take them when she could.

As they exited the park, Robert pulled something out of coat. It took Sabine a second to realize they were tickets, five of them.

"Yeah, so I called the promoter for these, saying I had some friends who wanted to come see me, they're front row, right by the ring, so I figured if your family wanted to come, you guys could come watch the title match."

Sabine didn't take much interest in the boxing community, but front row seats to the biggest fight of year had to be worth a small fortune. She wouldn't turn them down, it would mean a lot to him for her to show up.

"Oh, Rocco, yeah we'll be there." she said with a smile. Robert hadn't ever meet Kanan and Hera, although Sabine had told him about them, and he had already meet Ezra, granted that wasn't the best impression. It was odd for her to think that he knew Zeb as well as he did, given Zeb's status as one of his training partners, and the two got on well enough. But she supposed it was past time that he meet Hera and Kanan, they knew about him and knew he was the one who lead them to the part's they needed. He probably should of meet them before now, at least so far as someone who had helped them out.

"Hey Rocco, when's your next light day during your training regiment?" Sabine asked.

"Uh, a week from today, why? You wanna do somthin'?" Robert responded looking down at her.

"Well, I just thought you should meet my 'family' that's all, they've known about you for a while, even if we weren't official or anything and they've been interested in meeting you, in at least in part because you help lead us to the parts we needed."

"Yeah sure, talk to em, and we'll set something up , I can get to know the rest of 'em." Robert said to her rubbing her shoulder.

Robert already knew some basic information, how they weren't a real family in the biological sense. He also understood the concept of being close enough to someone that they basically became family, Robert had already explained how he felt the same way with his trainer/manager Mike, who had become like a father to him.

Sabine looked at the sky, the sun was practically all the way down. "Robert, it's getting late, maybe I should head back."

"Yeah sure." Robert said as he turned to head back the way they came. "Just gotta make sure you talk to your family tonight and we'll set somthin' up."

Before they knew it, they were at the shuttle station. To Sabine it seemed as though they didn't spend as much time together as they once had, but she knew that it was because of his training and the shortening days. It generally wasn't considered wise to stay out on the streets long after dark in the neighborhood where Robert lived and trained, even if they could both handle themselves it was trouble they didn't need.

Robert gave Sabine a quick kiss on the cheek, before saying his goodbyes. "Remember..."

"Yes I'll talk to them." Sabine said with a laugh. She found it funny he felt the need to keep reminding her about the "meet the family" scenario, considering she was the one who suggested it.

Punching him once in the arm, he was more solid than ever, she left to board the shuttle.

Taking a seat, she took the time to think on how things had changed and on her decisions'. She suspected now that she may of had at least some form of attraction to Robert from the beginning. Maybe not outright love at first sight, but a certain admiration for his tenacity in the fight she first saw him in.

Taking time to examine how she had constantly made efforts to be near him, forming plans around him, she may of been more attracted to him than she was originally aware of. Not a great deal, but enough to draw her to him.

It was odd, but to her things seemed to of changed a great deal, yet at the same time, not at all. The definition of their relationship had changed, but the dynamic had essentially remained the same, so far as she could see from today, the fact she had decided to start a relationship with him didn't seem to cause any real changes.

Her thoughts instead drifted to what the crew would think of her choice. Ezra was sure to be upset, she knew he liked her and already was hostile towards Robert. Zeb, she felt would be more understanding, he already teased her about him, maybe he suspected soothing she herself hadn't been totally aware of. Of all the crew Zeb was the most similar to Robert in personality, although Robert was infinitely more good natured, they both were fighters at heart, and he seemed to like Robert when they practiced together.

Hera and Kanan, essentially the parents on the ship, she was the most uncertain of. She felt they could go either way, either accept her choice, or go against it. Their reaction was both the most uncertain and most important to her, and that didn't exactly make her feel better.

Well she'd find out soon enough. As the shuttle landed in the port she felt a knot in her stomach. She'd never had to do something like this before, and she honestly felt silly about being as nervous about it as she was. She had fairly routinely been in fire fights with Imperial Storm troopers and had blown up more than her fair share of imperial property, this should be nothing in comparison.

But she knew that the situation wasn't really the same. This was forcing her to deal with a certain set of emotions she wasn't really used to experiencing. She hadn't been interested in someone romantically for a long time, and even then those had be crushes of a young girl, now she was a grown woman, or near enough that it really didn't matter, the situation wasn't the same as her school girl crushes or a simple flight of fancy.

As she walked to where the Ghost had been parked, she curiously found herself thinking of Ezra of all people. She was well aware of his feeling towards her, she was fairly certain it was just a simple crush, and soon enough he would have feelings for another girl, hopefully one closer to his own age. And while she knew that his feeling would rebound soon enough, in the time frame between then and the revelation she was now dating Robert, even if she herself was committed to only testing the waters at this point, it would feel like the end of the world to Ezra.

It was times like this she wished Kanan was a more typical Jedi teacher. While she didn't know much about the Jedi from an inside point of view, she knew Jedi of the old order were forbidden to love or form attachments. She knew Kanan did his best, and Ezra had developed his abilities quiet well in the time frame Kanan had trained him, had he be trained in a more traditional Jedi manner she would be faced with this particular complication to her own situation. It didn't really make he feel better to think this way, both because it simply wasn't the situation and she felt a bit guilty about wishing Ezra and Kanan were anything other than what they were. She did love them the way they are, for all their quirks and tendencies and really would wish it was any different, even if it did cause her current situation more complications.

Soon the Ghost came into sight. Sabine paused as she reached the ramp, taking a moment to gather her thoughts. Taking a deep breath, she ascended the ramp of the Ghost.

A/N: Alright, longest chapter to date. Reviews are as always appreciated, thanks for reading.


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: Star Wars Rebels is property of Disney and LucasFilm**

**A/N: I'd like to thank everyone who reviewed my story, even if it's only a few I truly do appreciate.**

**I do however need more feedback, this is one of the longest stories in this section, at the time of publishing this chapter it is the longest story per word and has the longest chapters on average. I need more feed back to know if this is going well, I'm putting a lot of effort into this story and I ned feed back to make sure it's coming out well.**

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**Well I've already broke my own rule on no long Author Notes, well any way onto the story.**

Chapter 5

"Sabine, I don't think this is a good idea."

Kanan looked at her with crossed arms with a stern look as he did so. Well it wasn't the worst response she could of gotten she supposed, but not exactly what she hoped for when she told them. Zeb had responded with smirk and a very silent "I knew it." whether he actually did or was just taking another chance to tease her Sabine didn't know, but she supposed it was irrelevant at this point.

Ezra had left the room when she brought it up to Kanan and Hera, she had hoped to explain things to him, but she supposed that would have to wait.

Hera was not so easy to read. Her face looked worried and anxious, like she wasn't sure what would come next, presumably from Kanan, although Sabine feared she may suspect something else for herself as well, as to what Sabine wasn't quite sure.

"Kanan...I." Sabine began, but Kanan held up a hand, showing her he wasn't done talking. Sabine didn't try to press it, she would only make it worse if she tried to fight him now. Her best hope was to let him have his say, then try and bring him around to her side afterwards.

"Sabine, I know you've been spending a lot of time with this guy, but you can't go and get attached to him. We aren't going to be here forever, and he can't know who we really are. This isn't going to end well for either of you, I just don't know what you were thinking."

Sabine hated being spoken to like a child, but she knew Kanan was right, at least partially in his assessment. She knew because she had the same thoughts when Robert had brought the idea up to her in the first place.

Sabine was ready to try and explain her position, but to her surprise Hera spoke before she could. "Kanan, go easy on her." everyone in the room turned to look at Hera.

"Hera..." Kanan began.

"Listen for a second love." Hera said placing a hand on Kanan's shoulder. "Sabine is a young woman, not a little girl. She needs to make these sort of decisions on her own, and given that this won't endanger anything other than possibly her own feelings, I think we need to let her work through this on her own."

Kanan's face went from stern to soft, or at least as soft as his face ever got. Sabine hadn't exactly been counting on Hera's to be her saving grace in this situation, but she was grateful for it none the less.

Kanan sighed, conceding to Hera's point. "Fine Sabine." he said, pausing for a moment. "You're not a child, so I won't treat you like one..." he seemed to think for a moment on what next to say. "I don't approve of your choice, but so long as your decisions to directly endanger you or the crew, I guess you'll have to make your own choices."

Sabine gave a sigh of relief. Not the best case scenario, but far from the worst, which she supposed she should be grateful for. But Kanan's point had brought her own concerns to the surface of her mind again. This would only be short term, and she had a feeling it would hurt for both of them when it ended, but it felt to good deep in the core of her being to just pass it up. She hoped it would be worth it,

but for now she pushed such concerns down, she had chosen her path and would stick to it until it's conclusion, whatever that may be.

She found her mind wondering back to Ezra, he was hurt, she didn't need to be force sensitive to tell that. She felt bad, but didn't feel guilty, she didn't like Ezra in way he liked her and she didn't feel bad about that. She liked Ezra, but not romantically. He was funny, but his age made him completely unappealing in terms of a potential partner. True she was only a couple of years older, but it was at a critical junction of growing up he was still mentally very much a child in more than few respect.

Pushing this out of her mind for the moment Sabine moved onto the next issue on her mind." Yeah so...now that we got that out of the way. Kanan, Hera I was wondering if you wanted to meet Rocco, I mean, he did give us our best lead on the parts we needed, I thought you might want to meet him yourself." she finished lamely.

Their faces told her all she needed to know how they felt about it. Hera looked apprehensive and Kanan looked more sullen than usual. Had she asked them the same question the night before, she did not doubt that their responses would be completely different. Before this little revelation Robert had been a friend of Sabine's who had given them a potential solution to their situation, she didn't doubt they would of been happy to meet him. Now he was a complication to their situation, something tying Sabine to something outside their core group, now he was almost an intruder to their group dynamic.

But Sabine had a feeling she knew what they would say. They may not like the situation, but they didn't truly have a reason for not meeting Robert. This added to the fact they both were honestly curious about the fighter both Zeb and Ezra had described in similar yet distinctly different ways all but insured they would at least meet him once.

Both had heard about Robert from Sabine, Ezra and Zeb, although all three described him in their own way. Sabine knew her view on him portrayed him in the best light, Ezra in the worst, but Zeb was probably the most even handed in his view on Robert, although possibly the least informed on him in terms of overall personality, only getting to know him from their sparing matches and having fairly little actual speaking between the two of them for all the time they spent together.

Hera spoke first."Yeah Sabine, we'd love to meet him." her voice doing a poor job of conveying what she said.

Kanan didn't so much as respond as shrug.

Zeb, who had remained unusually silent until this point finally spoke up. "I think you'll like 'em. He's a pretty easy going fella, didn't even get mad at me when I threw 'em out of the ring."

The thought of that day made Sabine smile, in retrospect it was kind of funny. Kanan however wasn't smiling, clearly not enjoying this line of conversation. "When can we meet him Sabine?" Kanan said in a voice declaring he was more irritated at being given all this information at once.

"Well, one week from today is when he told me he could meet you guys, so I guess that's when."

Kanan huffed out another sigh, Hera rubbed his shoulder. Sabine could tell he was seeing this a chore more than anything else. Pushing on Sabine continued "I was thinking we could goto this Caf shop near his gym and you guys could just kinda get to know each other, I sure you guys will like him, he's really nice once you get to know him."

"I'm sure he is Sabine." Hera said as she lead Kanan out of the room. "We'll see him then, but right now I think you need to go talk to Ezra."

Sabine knew that was coming, and it was probably what she was looking forward to the least. But someone needed to talk to Ezra, and she really thought it should be Kanan, but she supposed she would need to talk to him about it at some point anyway.

Sabine turned to head to the cabin Ezra and Zeb shared. The door was closed, Sabine wrapped her knuckle on the steel door. No answer.

"Ezra?" Sabine called out. She heard shuffling around inside the room."Ezra I'm coming in."

Tapping the control panel, the door slid open. Ezra was lying in his bunk facing the wall.

"Ezra..." Sabine began. She didn't know exactly how to bridge the subject, she felt bad that he was hurting, but she couldn't help the way she felt and didn't feel. She had to make his understand that just because he liked her, didn't mean she liked him the same way. Before she could go one, Ezra spoke up.

"I thought you said you weren't interested in a relationship."

Sabine could tell from his voice he wasn't upset, possibly close to crying, and that hurt her even more. "Ezra, that was the trust, I don't honestly know how this happened, I guess it sort of snuck up on me." that explanation sounded incredibly lame, but may of been the closest to the truth of what actually happened.

"Look, Ezra...I know you like me." she said to the back of his head, he still hadn't turned to face her. "But I don't like you in that way. I do care about you, but you're like a little brother to me." Sabine looked around the room trying to gather her thoughts. "But I don't think you are mature enough to be in a relationship, at least a serious one. I know you've lived a hard life, but your still a kid." she reached out placing a hand on his shoulder, she was glad when he didn't jerk away. "Be a kid first, then in a couple years, who knows what will happen, but enjoy being a kid while you can, in our life even that won't last as long as it should, take it while you can."

Ezra didn't respond, but Sabine felt him relax a little. "I just want you to know I still care about you, and that I know it hurts, but it will pass." she paused to think "I'll leave you to think on what I've said, just now I didn't mean to hurt you."

With that Sabine headed for the door, then she heard Ezra "Sabine...thanks for taking the time to talk to me..." he said before trailing off.

Glad to get a response from him Sabine replied "No problem."

"Really Robert, you don't have any nicer cloths?" Sabine said more than a little peeved. Robert had dressed in almost the exact same manner he always did, the only difference being he now wore a slightly nicer than average sweater under his jacket rather than his normal short. Normally Sabine didn't care much for a person's personal style was, but she had hoped Robert would dress a little nicer to try and make a good impression on Kanan and Hera.

"Uhhh, yeah...no actually this is the nicest thing I own." he said gesturing at his sweater.

"Oh..." Sabine blushed at this. She knew Robert didn't own a lot of personal affects and she probably should of known better, but she was nervous. Kanan and Hera were barely on board with the idea of her dating anyone and she wanted Robert to make a good impression. "Sorry Rocco, I'm just a bit worried, I want them to like you."

"Oh come on, how could they not love me?" he said spreading his arms as they walked to the Caf shop. "I charmed you into liken me, I can win over these two no problem. I just gotta turn on the ol' charm, maybe tell em' a few jokes, and bam!" he said punching his hand for emphasis " they'll be beggin' me to move in with em', they be sayin' 'What ever did we do before Rocco came by to brighten our lives! Sabine how did you not introduce us sooner'." his smile widening as he spoke.

Sabine smiled, she knew he was just joking, but his confidence was infectious. She supposed that would a be a boon in his favor, his good mood and positive attitude spilled over into other's moods. That to her more than made up for his poor speaking abilities and the fact he at time didn't seem to fully comprehend situations. He may not be bright, but he was incredibly affable, which was in her opinion a far better social skill to have.

She laughed at his prediction of Hera's and Kanan's reaction to him and gave him a look, half skeptical and half playful.

"Alright, alright, maybe they won't go that far, but I bet I can win em' over." he said bumping into her ever so slightly, causing her to stumble in her step ever so slightly.

"I'm sure you can Rocco, I'm sure you can." she said while trying to think on the situation. Kanan was her biggest concern, but also her best hope. He was a Jedi, so he could instinctively sense honesty in most people, so she was certain he could be won over fairly quickly, despite the fact he was more skeptical than Hera.

Hera would be trickier, while she would inherently be more open to the idea, she would need actual physical interaction with Robert to make any judgment about him. That was a tricky situation, Robert had a way about him where he either charmed you or irritated you, there wasn't much middle ground with his personality and how people took it. Sabine felt, or more hoped, that Hera would be the former.

They approached the Caf shop, Sabine felt her stomach flutter. This was it, for better or worse, this was going to be the end of her fear on this situation.

Sabine stopped at the entrance, and turned to give Robert one last look over. Besides the fact his face no longer looked swollen and broken, he looked almost exactly the same as the day they meet. Not exactly a great first impression to make, but it was what they had to work with.

Robert noticed what she was doing, and spread his arm out as if to give her a better look "How do I look." he said spinning around on his heels.

Once he completed his turn, Sabine reached up and straightened his hat. "Just like you should, let's go." with that they went in.

Sabine only had the can the room to find Kanan and Hera. The planet was populated largely by humans, due in large part to the heavy Imperial presence, a green Twi'lek stood out fairly quickly. As if he could sense her, and Sabine quickly realized he probably could, Kanan looked up at them. Kanan raised his hand to indicate he'd seen them.

"Over there Rocco." Sabine said pointing him in the right direction. Looking over, Robert got a smile on his face and started waving like they were people he'd known for years and started heading towards the table, with Sabine chasing after him. Again Robert didn't conform to what was expected from most people. Most people would of let the person doing the introduction lead the way, but he took point.

This was one of the things she liked so much about Robert, he was extremely outgoing in general and didn't shy away from people, and seemed to almost thrive on interpersonal interactions.

Robert reached the table with Sabine a step behind. Robert had extended his hand to Kanan, which Kanan took "You must be Kanan, yeah I'm Robert, but you can call me Rob or Rocco, whatever floats ya boat." he said smiling the whole time, before turning his attention to Hera. Sabine took a moment to look at Kanan, who face clearly showed his confusion at the fairly abrupt interaction.

"You must be Hera." she said shaking her hand in turn while taking a seat at the table. "You're the pilot right? I hope Paluie didn't try to shaft ya on those parts, I know he can be a bit abrasive when he talks to people."

Sabine slide into the seat next to Robert. She took a look at Hera and noticed a ghost of a smile on her face, well at least Robert's unique brand of charm had worked on her, however small.

"No, he was perfectly fine, I understand the prices he's asking for given the situation, he is still much more reasonable than any other dealer, were working on getting the money, should have it soon enough." Hera responded, a laugh hovering under her voice.

"Yeah? That's good didn't want have to talk to him about that, once he's set into something, he isn't exactly the easiest person to convince of somthn' else."

They sat opposite of each other for and awkward moment before Robert spoke again. "Yo, I know you guys don't know me or nothin' like that, but I just want ya to know I think Sabine here is a great gal, I ain't ever gonna do nothin' to hurt her."

Sabine felt the phantom of a stab in her stomach, she knew that if any pain was going to come of this she would be the casue, not Robert, and Kanan and Hera knew it as well. But she suppressed it for now, concentrating on getting through the "meet the parents" situation.

Kanan spoke next, in calm even toned voice. "Well that's part of why we decided to meet you, but we also wanted to thank you in person for your help. We we're in a real bind, it was sort of fate I guess that you two meet, but any way thanks again..." Kanan clearly wasn't sure how to actually approach this situation, Sabine realized that this was a particular situation he probably never expected to have to deal with. "So..." he began again, "Sabine tells us your a pretty good fighter, you have a pretty big fight coming up."

Robert's face lit up at the conversation turn to something he liked "Yeah well, I'm not really that good, more like I can take more hits, but yeah Heavy Weight Championship match, five weeks, dumb luck really, kinda fittin' for a dummy like me." he finished with a laugh.

Sabine laughed along with him, and was relieved to see Kanan and Hera smile lightly at his joke, as lame as it was. Things were going as well as she could of hoped, all thing considered. They weren't hitting it off but the tension had eased noticeably.

Robert talked on for a few more minutes on his training system and his running regiment before stopping almost all at once. "Sorry about runnin' on with it, didn't mean to bore ya with my life, but yeah Sabine say ya' guys are like a free-lance cargo ship, that's gotta be pretty cool, gettin' to travel all over the galaxy, seein' new palces."

The Cargo ship explanation was the cover Sabine had come up with as to their livelihood, being the closest thing to a legal equivalent of what they sometimes did.

"Oh yeah." Hera said, rolling easily into the cover story "That's actually how our happy little family kinda grew, I meet Kanan, then we meet Zeb, Sabine after that and Ezra came on a short while ago. Not how I imagined my family life, but I wouldn't trade it for anything."

Robert nodded showing his understanding. "Yeah, kinda the same say with me and my trainer Mike, after I lost my parents, he was like a father to me, taught me everything I know, unfortunately I don't seem able to learn everything he knows." he said with another laugh, and the chuckle was echoed between the rest. Robert had a habit of making fun of himself, never anything to harsh, but he routinely poked fun at himself .

Sabine never asked why he did it, she wasn't sure if it was from insecurity or if he was trying to disarm any potential insults that may be thrown at him. She also thought she may be over thinking it and he simply didn't care much on the matters he made fun of. She supposed she'd bridge the issue with him at some point, but no now, right now it seemed to work in their favor.

Sabine looked at the clock above the counter. She was surprised to see they had been in the shop for a half-hour already. Robert wasn't going to be able to stay much longer, he had planned on meeting with Mike later that day to discuss something more business related than boxing related. Not what Sabine had hoped for, but she supposed a limited interaction may be the best situation for their first meeting.

"So, I was wonderin' did Sabine talk to you guys about comin' to may fight? I mean I gave the tickets to Sabine last week, the promoter gave to me for free, so don't sweat the price nor nothin' but there pretty good seats." AS this came out of Robert's mouth Sabine froze, she had completely forgotten about the tickets.

Kanan and Hera gave her a quick look then turned back to Robert. "Sabine must of forgotten to tell us, this is the first we're hearing about this." Hera said taking another look at Sabine. "But we'd love to go, seeing as you went through the trouble to get us seats."

"Alright! Sweet, it's gonna be like havin' my own private cheerin' section." With that he stood up while looking at his watch "I hate to cut out so soon, but I gotta meet my manager, but we'll continue the conversation next time alright?" he said shaking both Hera's and Kanan's hands before jogging to the exit and out the front door.

"Well...he was..." Kanan began.

"He seems like a nice young man Sabine." Hera finished for him.

Kanan nodded his head in agreement. "You weren't exaggerating when you said he was "near the suface" Sabine, in more ways than one." Kanan said.

Sabine gave a sign of frustration "He's smarter than he act guys, he just never finished any formal education." this was the most common thing noted about Robert, he didn't not come off as very bright, but Sabine knew from time with him he actually was profoundly wise at times it was scary. She supposed he was what you would consider street smart, but he seemed fairly good at understanding life and the world.

"No Sabine, I meant that he keeps his feeling very close to the surface, he's one of the most genuine individuals I've ever meet." Kanan said rubbing his chin. "I gotta say it's nice to meet someone in the galaxy who isn't trying to pull one over on us."

Sabine was a bit confused, she was certain they had meet plenty of good people in their travels. "Kanan, haven't we meet, and helped a lot of good people?"

"Yes, but that doesn't mean that they are always honest, even the best person usually has something they are hiding deep down, but I didn't get that vibe from him."

Sabine thought back to the night Robert told her about his off at the title, he had the information for a grand total of maybe 12 hours before he let it spill out to someone he barely knew. Now that she thought about it, Robert barely ever keep anything inside to himself, he was pretty much an open book, if you asked him something, he pretty much gave it to you straight. Now she realized that this went deeper than she may of thought, not something to be concerned about, but it was interesting now that she thought about, he didn't really seem capable of not letting people know how he felt. Well she supposed that with his personality, that wasn't a bad thing.

"So you guys like him?" Sabine said smiling, she knew them well enough to know that she had won this one.

Hera responded this time "Yes Sabine, at least as much as we can based on this short encounter, and if Kanan doesn't think he's anything to worry about, then I'm inclined to agree with him."

Sabine felt a weight lift of her chest. Given the rocky start this had stated with, this was as good an outcome she could of hoped for.

"Come on let's head back to the ship." Kanan said getting up and heading for the door.

As Sabine went to follow, Hera jumped up next to her to walk with her to the door. "Sabine, I gotta say you have an interesting choice in men."

"How do you mean?"

"Well, I don't know, as pretty as you are, I guess I thought you'd end up dating someone...I don't know better looking?" her voice was playful, so Sabine knew she didn't mean anything by it, but Sabine still felt a bit irritated at it, looks really didn't matter to her.

Hera seeing she may of been a bit harsh spoke again "Sabine, I'm just teasing, he's a nice guy, that's more important than looks, you can't take be so sensitive about these things."

That was it thought, Sabine realized, she was much more defensive of Robert than she really should been. Maybe it was becasue she felt he put himself down so much, but she didn't like it when others did, she had made a habit of smacking Zeb when ever tried to make fun of him behind his back. The weird thing was she knew they didn't mean anything by it, but she felt compelled to defend him.

"Yeah, but his face doesn't look quite right to me." Kanan called back, startling Sabine "His eye's looked swollen up, but didn't looked bruised, did have some kind of reaction to something?"

"Oh, no, Rocco told me when I asked his the same thing, that's scar tissue from being punched in the face so many times, it's not that uncommon in boxers." Sabine told him calling ahead.

"Well, now that your new boyfriend brought it up earlier, we're not even close to the price of those parts, even with all of us working, we've raided about 2,000 credits, putting us at 17,000 total we can put to parts."

Sabine was dishearten but not surprised, they could all only get minimum wage jobs, meaning they weren't making much money at their odd jobs they did get. You didn't exactly have a resume as a rebel.

But now may be the time to bring her other plan out in the open. "Actually Kanan, 2,000 might be enough." this got her a questioning look from both Hera and Kanan. "Okay hear me out, my last plan worked out, sort of, just let me explain." she paused to take a deep breath. "Okay, now Boxing is a huge deal here and there are always people making bets on the fights, the big ones especially." She could see

both of the knew where she was going, but they let her continue. "A bet on Robert would a huge pay out if..." Kanan raised his hand to stop her.

"Do you think he can win?" he said in a even toned voice.

Sabine thought on it, but she already knew her own opinion on it. "No."

"Sabine, honey then why bring it up?" Hera asked putting a hand on her shoulder.

"Because, we don't have to bet on him to win." She saw the puzzled look on their faces and continued "We can bet on how long he'll last, and if he can go the distance, that odds are almost exactly the same as him winning."

Kanan raised an eyebrow "Do you think he can do that?"

Sabine smiled "Definitely, he can take a beating like you wouldn't believe, and he doesn't get tired, most boxers fade in later round because of stamina, but Rocco just doesn't slow down, his official odds don't do him justice."

She omitted that going the distance had actually become Robert's true goal in the fight rather than winning. She was surprised to find that no one had ever managed to go the full 15 rounds with Weathers, the closest being a 11 round match last year. Robert aimed to be the first, to him doing that was just as good as winning.

She didn't tell Kanan and Hera however because that might hurt her case, if they knew he didn't even have the goal of winning.

Kanan rubbed his chin and Hera's face was screwed up in concentration. Sabine had suspected they were aware of her plan, but given their reaction she was no longer sure of it.

Hera spoke first, but to Kanan "Kanan, this might be the only way we'll get the money in a timely fashion, at the rate we're making credits it could be a year before we have the money we need."

Kanan didn't look as certain "Maybe, but we'd lose a good chunk of credits if it doesn't pan out."

Sabine stepped forward and grabbed Kanan's hand "Please Kanan, trust me on this, he can go the distance, I'm sure, I know the odds don't look that way, but they don't know what he's really capable of."

Sabine didn't know if it was her words, or something in the force but Kanan nodded. "Alright Sabine, we'll give it a shot, I just hope your boyfriend is as tough as you think he is."

Sabine broke into a smile then hugged Kanan "Thanks Kanan, you're the best." Sabine was pretty sure she had caught him of guard, he didn't immediately response, but just for a moment, then he returned her hug.

1 week later

"Move ya Bum! Get in under his reach! Watch your feet!" Mike shouted as Zeb and Robert spared.

Sabine didn't normally watch Robert train, but today she didn't have anything else planned, so she figured she might as well see how Robert was improving.

His foot work definitely was more coordinated than she had seen it before, but Zeb had also improved to her great surprise.

Zeb had always been a fantastic warrior and fighter, but he didn't have much in the way of boxing abilities, which was to be expected seeing as he'd never done it before. But now he was moving like a real boxer, not an expert but definitely moving better.

Now their sparring had become more intense, Zeb actually throwing real punch and Robert landing of serious strikes to the torso. They weren't trying to do any real damage, but Sabine could see and some time hear they were throwing real punches.

"Alright you two, that's enough for today, hit the showers." Mike shouted at them.

With that Zeb and Robert moved to the edge of the ring, both climbing threw the rope. "Hey Sabine, I'll see ya back at the ship." Zeb called out as he headed for the door.

She waved to him as she approached Robert "Hey Rocco!" she called as he walked towards her.

"Hey Sabine!" he responded while leaning over and kissing her on the cheek "Okay now one for me." he said turning his face to let her kiss his cheek, which she did.

"I gotta hit the showers, then I'll meet ya outside, okay? We'll figure something out then."

She nodded, smiled, and slapped him on the back as he went off to the showers. Ever sense they had officially started dating, Sabine found herself noticing him during training more and more, she supposed it was because now she was kind of allowed to notice him more, at least in her own mind.

Outside Robert showed up about 10 minutes later, chewing on another piece of gum.

"Yo, Sabine what do you wanna do today?" he said placing and arm around her pulling her in close.

It was a good question, it seemed like they had done everything the city had to offer in their time together, or at least anything that would be of any interest to either of them. Spending time with Robert was nice enough, but she was missing the freedom the Ghost's crew had previously enjoyed.

She thought for a moment on where they could go. The Park and Lake were out, the weather had turned and now both were to miserable of spots to even try and go to.

Then an idea hit her, not exactly what she would considered an ordinary outing, but it could be fun. "Hey Rocco, why don't we go the stadium? I mean it would be pretty cool to see the place before the fight, they'll let you in right?"

She could tell Robert wasn't expecting to hear this as an idea, but he face turned into a smile. "Yeah that'll be cool, yeah they'll let me in, they've already done it twice form me, yeah it'll be cool to have a look around when it's empty."

With that, they set off on foot for the stadium.

Sabine hadn't ever gotten a good look at the stadium prior to this. She always knew it was big, but knowing and seeing were two different things. It wasn't the biggest building she'd ever seen, nor was it even the closest to being the biggest she'd ever heard about, but something about the fact that she seemed to have an almost personal connection to it because of Robert made it seem much more imposing.

Various pictures of Robert and Weather's were all over the Stadium including a huge holographic projection of both of them in fighting stances. The door was guarded, in the loses term possible, and all that they needed to get in was Robert telling the man who he was, not exactly hard to prove given his picture was all over the stadium.

The first place they went was ring, and stood in the center. The stadium had two large banners, one of Weathers and one of Robert, hanging at opposite ends of the stadium. From down here in the ring, the stadium seemed like the entire world to Sabine, she tried to imagine it full of people and flashing lights. That didn't seem like something Sabine could ever see herself doing, she wasn't what you would call shy but she didn't like having all eye's on her either.

"Man, this place is huge..." Sabine said more to herself than to Robert "and seats are completely sold out?"

"Yup, and a ton of people are paying to see the fight from home or at bars, pre-sales are showing this is gonna be the biggest event on the planet in three decades."

Sabine was more than a little stunned. She knew that boxing was popular here, but seeing the stadium and knowing that it would be filled and that even that didn't get everyone who wanted to see in really sent the message home.

"You get paid for this right? I mean you aren't just going get into the fight for nothing are you?" Sabine was surprised at herself for not beginning it up earlier, but being so preoccupied with her own financial situation, it never occurred to her to ask Robert if he was getting paid for going toe-to-toe with one of the best professional fighters on the planet.

"Yeah, I get like, 75,000 credits and some change, why?"

"I don't know I was just wondering if there was more in this for you than just a shot at a title, I mean it's not like I'm doubting you to anything, it's just I saw you're fight with that Trandorshan, you won but you still have some nasty injuries." It was only a partial lie, truth was she didn't think Robert would win, even with all the progress he had made, but she knew that in serious matches even the winner could be pretty badly hurt.

"Yeah, well pretty much anyone who fights in the professional league get's a paycheck for a fight, win, lose or tie you get paid." he walked to the edge of ring like he was thinking.

"Rocco? You okay."

"Yeah, I just can't believe it, in a few weeks I'm gonna be down here fightin' the best for the biggest title, I never thought I'd get here, it feels like everything in my life is turning up, I got my dream, I got you, I've never been healthier." he turned to face her "All feels like a dream ya know? I'm afraid I'm gonna wake up and it won't be nothin'."

Sabine walked over to Robert and kissed him on the cheek "You know Rocco, you are surprisingly deep at time you know that?"

Robert smiled at this and pulled her close to his side "Ya know I think you are some kind of good luck charm. It's like as soon as I meet ya, my life started turnin' around." he started leading her to the edge of the ring before climbing out first, then helping Sabine down afterwards.

"Hey, let's go check out the locker room next." He said heading off towards the changing rooms.

"Why? I mean, after the ring, that isn't really that impressive."

"Yeah, but I feel like ya know, that it's kinda like ya need to see it, it's were all the prep for the fight is and all that."

While not to excited about it, Sabine understood, at least partially. He wanted to take it all in while he could. He may not get another shot in the big leagues.

This was something she had come to understand only a few days earlier. Robert was still young, Sabine had honestly been confused as his initial despair over being given suck a big opportunity. She had thought that even if he lost breaking in on the big league at his age would be sure to launch his carrier.

However she had recently learned something that made his fear much more reasonable. Baffop had much stricter regulations on combat sports than any other place she had ever known. Mandolore had essentially no restrictions on who could compete in said sports, Baffop, especially under Imperial control, had extremely stringent restrictions. The one that stood out in her mind was the age restrictions. In the past two years, 30 years was deemed the maximum age for professional boxers on Baffop.

The young age surprised her, but after reading more on the subject the more she understood the reasoning. Boxers, especially heavyweights, routinely took devastating hits to the head. Doing this for years on end had the fairly common effect of causing at least some form of brain damage in later years. The age restriction was meant to stop this, it was still too soon to see if it had done any good, but Robert was already 20 and had only ever competed on non-important levels and had literally no presence on the larger scale of the sport when she meet him and boasted a very unimpressive fight record.

Add to the fact it took years to climb the ranks into tip contender status to get a shot at a title, Robert was understandably not confident on his ability to get to the top. At his age if he wasn't really a presence on the major league, he probably never would be. And that's why this shot scared him, he hadn't thought he could compete at the professional level.

Now he had his shot, probably the only one he was ever going to get to even compete at the professional level. He planned on getting in as much experience with it as he could, even if it was just hanging out in the locker-room.

"Alright Rocco, let's go to locker-room then, but after than I want look at one of those skyboxes all the rich people get to watch from." she really didn't want to watch anything from a skybox, but she was kind of curious as to what they were like, people paid a small fortune to watch from them, she wanted to see what the fuss was about.

Robert shrugged "Fine, come on then, we can't be in here for too much longer, they only let ya hang around for so long."

3 Weeks later

The Locker-room was actually a lot nicer than she thought it would be, given a locker room was really only a couple steps above a bathroom. She had imagined a much nastier place, but it was actually clean and had nice equipment.

But as they exited Sabine was happy to leave it. Even if it was the nicest locker-room in the world, it was still that, a locker-room and she found it boring. She understood why Robert wanted to have a look around, it was his prep spot for his fight, but she could share his enthusiasm.

The Skyboxes, however were more of a mystery to her. They were incredibly nice, and that was the problem. They had monitors, refrigerators and basically everything you'd find in a small apartment. It seemed kind of like missing the point of going to a live sporting event to sit away from it on a couch and to spend such a huge amount of credits to be so detached from the event.

Her and the rest of the crews seats were down in with the other spectators and were actually right next to the ring.

"Hey Rocco, let's go find out seats, I want to see how close I get to be to the ring."

"Yeah? Man, we should of thought of that while we were down there, save ourselves a trip."

Sabine could tell by his tone of voice that he was only acting irritated because it was expected to be irritated , but she could tell he was happy to have another excuse to head back down to the ring.

The walk down to the seating was quick enough, and they had a short game of chase each other down the hall, but soon they reached the seating numbers on the tickets. Sabine sat in the her own seat and looked up at the ring. They were close to the ring, but again the difference between what you read and what you saw were totally different. Their seats were close enough that they'd be able to hear the impact of the punches and count the beads of sweat on Rocco and Weathers.

"Next time your down here, I'll be up there." Robert said point at the ring.

It was really starting to come home to Sabine how big this was to Robert. She had always known on an intellectual level, but not really on an emotional level until now.

She didn't know what to really say. She had a few things she wanted to say, but didn't feel it was appropriate right now.

"I can't win ya know..." Robert said still looking at the ring.

Sabine tried not to let on she felt the same way, instead she of out right responding she just stared at him. She knew he didn't think his chances were great, but hadn't ever heard him admit that he thought he had no chance.

"Weathers is just a better fighter, but no one has ever gone the distance, I'm gonna be the first, I'll take his all the way."

"Rocco, don't give up before you start, the second you think your opponent is unbeatable, he is."

The thing is Sabine thought he was right, he wouldn't win, but the thing is, she wanted to be wrong, wanted him to be wrong. She wanted proof that the underdog could win against the best, that the long shot was a possible shot.

Sabine had slowly realized over the past weeks, especially in the past few days as the match got closer and closer, was why she identified with Robert as much as she did and why she liked him. He was like the crew of the Ghost in the match and Weathers was the Empire. Robert was unrefined, made do with old or improvised equipment and relying on heart and determination, Weathers well trained, well feed and had the best of it all. If Robert could beat Weathers, it would be a private moral victory for Sabine, to see that the underdog could take down the Top Dog. And maybe he could show the people that it was possible as well.

Granted Weathers wasn't really anything like the Empire, from what she had seen of him on footage he was actually a very nice fellow, he did charity work, always had time for fans and was actually very charismatic and funny in his interview. Unlike Robert he was extremely well spoken and had a way with words, it made it hard to dislike him.

But she was on Robert's side, and really hoped that he could somehow win. He could go the distance, she was sure he could, but she hoped he could win.

"Don't go in expecting to lose Rocco, you can win, it might not be easy, but you can do."

Robert looked down at her "You think so?"

"I know so." And to her surprise, she found herself thinking that he could win, nothing certain, but in her stomach, she felt like he could do it. She wasn't sure if it was genuine or her just trying to convince herself, but she found it much more comforting than her previous feelings.

"Let's get out of here Rocco, it's making you to serious, and your no fun when you're serious."

That got a laugh out of Robert "All right, let's cut out before they get sick of us pokin' around."

With that they left the stadium and headed back to Robert's neighborhood.

Sabine, Kanan and Hera were a little more than uncomfortable with the situation they currently found themselves in.

Having agreed to Sabine gambling idea, Kanan and Hera now found themselves in a situation they did like and that was dealing with a high security location in a very public place with no means to defend themselves. They didn't have any reason to believe they'd be attacked at the betting booths, but they still didn't like being around imperial security with no defense.

Sabine had insisted on tagging along, as it had been her idea in the first place, and now was regretting the decision. She was bored waiting in line and feel a spike of panic whenever she saw a storm trooper.

Gambling was legal on Baffop, but it was regulated heavily by the Imperial presence, meaning Storm troopers and Imperial officers.

As they waited in line, Kanan shifted uneasily as a pair of Storm Troopers passed by. AS they approached the booth, Kanan pulled out the 2,000 credits they had managed to raised so far at their odd jobs.

"Good evening sir, here to place a beat on the fight?" the man behind the booth said with a smile that seemed just a little to pleasant.

"Yes on Bardok vs. Weathers." he said sliding the credits to man.

"Good sir, and what will your beat be?" he said taking the credits and pulling up a data pad.

"I'm betting on the match length." Kanan said trying speak at little as possible.

"Alright, give me a second." He said cycling through the a list Sabine couldn't see. "There we are, and how many rounds will you be betting on?"

"Fifteen." Kanan said.

The Bookie looked up, as if questioning if Kanan was serious. "You do know that the most likely outcome for the fight is currently a fourth round knockout in Weathers favor right?"

"Just take the bet." Kana said sternly.

The bookie shrugged his shoulders "Alright, just need so ID to match up the information."

Kanan handed over one of the many forged IDs that the crew used and bookie matched up the information and handed Kanan a slip. "Just keep that, on the off chance you win your bet, you'll need that to collect."

Kanan took the slip and turned to leave with Sabine and Hera in tow.

As they got outside Kanan turned to Sabine "I hope this plan of yours works Sabine, I don't feel as confident about it as I did when we still had those credits in hand."

The trio started on their way back to the ship "Rocco can do Kanan, he's like a tank, he can take a beating and keep on coming after you."

Kanan sighed, the fight wasn't for another week, but bets were being accepted in advance by the larger gambling organization, Sabine had convinced Kanan to do it now out of fear that he may change his mind later.

He could cancel the bet, but now that he had made it, at least a gave her a window of time to persuade him otherwise. Now she just had to keep him on board rather than try and convince him to follow through.

The Gambling den they had just visited was the biggest and was actually part of the stadium where the fight would be. She looked at one of the banners with Robert's image on it.

In all too short a period of time, everything would concluded, for better or worse. Not for the first time Sabine wondered what would happen if this plan failed. They'd be stuck here for a long stretch until they got the money to pay for the parts.

But what really bothered Sabine was...the idea of staying on Baffop didn't bother her as much as it once had. It meant staying with Robert, and that was one big silver lining. But she felt guilty for feeling like this at the same time. They did important work in the galaxy, maybe they weren't taking down the Empire, but they were helping people.

The train of thought was depressing her, pushing it aside for the moment she changed her mind set. Looking at the setting sun, she turned to Kanan and Hera "Okay, guys I'm gonna head of on my own and meet up with Rocco, I'll come back to the ship later tonight, alright?"

"Alright, but don't stay out to late, remember you have work in the morning." Hera said Sabine walked backwards away from them.

"Don't worry about it guys, when have I ever stayed out late?" and turned and ran off before they could correct her and mention that she had made of habit of doing just that more than few times ever sense they had come to this planet.

Sabine walked up the street to Robert apartment building. The neighborhood was not nice in terms of aesthetics, but in terms of people it was pretty welcoming. At first glance it looked like a rough neighborhood, and she supposed by more than few standards it was, but she had found most the people were genuinely pleasant and pretty mellow in most things. She could recognize a number of people on sight, but still had problems pinning down their names.

They all knew her as Robert's girlfriend and Robert was well liked in the area, which Sabine understood, while he wasn't beloved by the neighborhood, his friendly attitude put him on good terms with most of his neighbors.

Ever sense his title match was announced h had been receiving gifts from a number of neighbors as well. Sabine had cynically thought at first that these people just wanted to attach themselves to Roberts newfound celebrity from the fight. That was until she saw until she saw what these gifts were. They were in large things to help him train like a new pair of running shoes after Robert and torn up his old pair, or hats and gloves for when he ran in the cold. A fruit vender routinely gave Robert free fruit and a number of people had even raised money for training expenses .

As far as Sabine could tell these were gifts from people who genuinely wanted to see Robert do his best. It was nice to see people like this in the galaxy, genuine acts of kindness made her have hope for the galaxy at large.

Roberts apartment was on the third floor of an old building that had clearly seen better days. As Sabine got to the door she reached into her pocket and pulled out the keycard Robert had given her and let herself into his apartment.

Robert wasn't home but Sabine hadn't expected him to be. Today was one of his heavy days and they normally didn't spend those days together. But tonight she was going to surprise him with a home cooked meal. She was no great chef, or really even a good one, but she could cook a passable meal. The fact was Robert was a better cook than she was, if only out of necessity. He's lived on his own for years and had to do things for himself. Even then he wasn't much better than her, he'd cooked for her once and it was fine, but she felt like it was time to return the favor.

It wasn't about the food anyway, it was just a chance to spend time together. Robert and her right now only saw each other once a week, and for her it wasn't really enough.

Pulling off her pack she pulled out the ingredients she'd bought earlier that day. The meal wasn't going to be anything special, just a simple pasta dish and meat sauce, but Robert loved that type of food, and frankly he wasn't hard to impress. Sabine had found Robert loved to eat as much as he loved to fight, he could put massive amounts of food away in one sitting, and Sabine attributed this to his work out regiment, but it was still pretty amazing to watch.

Looking at Robert's clock, she knew it was time to start cooking. It was pretty simple, just boiling water and heating the sauce, but she needed to time it right.

While she waited for the water to boil she looked around Robert's one room apartment. Robert's choices in decorating was odd to say the least, most of furniture looked like it was made out of random objects that just to happened to serve some sort of vague function, and number of knives stabbed into the wall serving at coat and hat racks, and cable spool severing as his coffee table.

One of the few piece of actual furniture Robert had was a dresser with a mirror, although more than half of the mirror was covered with pictures and newspapers clippings. The pictures were largely of Robert's deceased parents.

Sabine hadn't pried for details, but she knew Robert's father had died of a heart attack when he was seven, and his mother had died in an industrial accident when he was 18. Granted his loss of his parents hadn't been as violent as the other's on the Ghost, but that didn't mean it hurt him any less. She supposed it didn't matter much how it happened, losing someone close to you hurt regardless.

In her own bizarre way, she was glad that she had something to focus her own anger on, it gave her a real target for her frustration. Robert didn't really have that, but at least he had some sense of closure in that he knew there was nothing he could of done in either situation.

Sabine sighed, trying to compare tragic pasts was depressing. Deciding to leave it alone, she turned back to her boiling water. Robert would be home soon and she wanted dinner to be ready.

Well it was no master piece of culinary skill, but it looked good enough for Robert. Granted he'd eat just about anything, he wasn't exactly picky.

The table was set up and the food was ready. Sabine was giving it the once over when she heard the tumblers in the lock rolling. The next second Robert walked in, looking tired but fairly lively otherwise.

"Hey stranger!" Sabine said while walking up to him, amused at the surprised look on his face, kissing him once on the cheek.

"Yo, Sabine." He crooked smile broke across his face as he looked at the diner she had made. "You do all this for me?"

It was a stupid question, but Sabine smiled and rolled her eyes "No I did it for Mike." she punched him in the shoulder for emphasize. "Let's eat alright, I bet your hungry."

"Oh, yeah definitely, worked me hard today, one more week of real training, after that I just gotta do the light stuff, Mike don't want to overdo myself the week of the fight ya know, doesn't want to risk me gettin' hurt of nothin'."

With that they sat down and began to eat and chat about non-sense things, trying to avoid any conversation that might ruin the good mood they found themselves in.

"So Rocco, what do you think of your diner?" she didn't truly care how good it actually was, Robert like just about anything, but it was just more non-sense talk.

Robert swallowed a big mouth full of the pasta before answering "Yeah, great, you should become a professional chef or somthin' it's that good I'm serious."

Sabine started laughing at this, the Sauce was essentially premade and the pasta only needed to be boiled, but leave it to Robert to make is sound like something more amazing than it really was.

Sabine looked at the clock, it was getting late and she'd have to leave soon. "Rocco I got to go soon, Kanan and Hera are expecting me back before it gets to late."

"Ya know, you could stay here tonight, so you don't have to walk home in the dark or nothin', I can sleep on the couch and you can have my bed."

Sabine wasn't sure Kanan and Hera would like that idea, but she did want to spend more time with Robert. Then there was work the next day, if she stayed the night she wouldn't have to leave as early for work, Robert's apartment was much closer to the restaurant.

"Ummm, yeah I guess I could, but I need to call Kanan and Hera first."

"Oh, yeah no I can do that I'll just." Robert walked over to his window and opened it up. Cupping his hand around his mouth he shouted at the top of his voice "Yo! Kanan! Hera! Sabine is stayin' over here tonight! That okay with You?!"

Sabine started cracking up at this. Holding her stomach and bending over as Robert closed his window and walked back towards her."What?" he said with a giant goofy smile on his face, acting like he didn't know what was so funny.

"Not that I don't appreciated the effort Rocco..." Sabine took a second to catch her breath "But I've just going to give them a call on the comm."

"Oh, yeah that's much better than my idea. That's why you're the smart one in the relationship."

Sabine started to laugh again, much more controlled this time before picking up her comm to tell Kanan and Hera where she was.

"Yeah, I'm staying with Rocco tonight...No...No he's sleeping on the couch...are you serious! I promise okay, alright...yeah...good night."

Sabine cut off the com link with her face turning beat red."So they cool with it?"

"Yeah...Yeah they're cool." Sabine didn't feel like explain to Robert the very short conversation she had just had, it was embarrassing enough to have it once, she didn't feel like having it again.

"Yeah, somthin' tells me that they might of asked you a question of a slightly sensitive nature."

"What, yeah, but can we please not talk about it?" Sabine said her face still extremely red.

Robert raised his hand defensively " Alright, well it's gettin late anyway, I think we should head to bed, I gotta get up to run and you gotta go to work."

"Yah, I suddenly feel very exhausted." Sabine said heading to Robert's bead while he pulled a blanket and pillow out of the bottom drawer of his dresser and threw them on couch and pulled out a sweater and sweat pant and tossed them to Sabine.

"You can change into that to sleep in, I'll turn away while you change."

As Robert turned around Sabine didn't waist anytime in changing into "sleep wear" and then climbing into bed.

"Alright you can turn around now." she said as she pulled the blanket over herself.

Robert was less shy, granted he just went down to his under shirt and shorts, before climbing onto the couch. "Night Sabine, see ya tomorrow."

"Night Rocco, see you tomorrow."

With that they both drifted off to sleep.

Sabine almost never woke up all at once. She always felt like she slowly faded from the sleeping world into the waking. Not to say she could wake up in a hurry if she had to, but given normal circumstances, she preferred to wake up in a slower fashion.

Today she founder herself somewhere in-between the two situation. She had to get up for work, but didn't have to do so in a hurry. It took her a moment to remember where she was. She wasn't used to waking up anywhere other than her bunk of the Ghost for the longest time that waking up anywhere else disoriented her when she woke up.

This wasn't always the case, prior to joining the Ghost she could of slept anywhere and not have this affect, but she supposed she was getting used to always sleeping in one place, after a fashion.

Robert's bed was warm, but the air in the apartment was cold. It wasn't freezing but Robert's apartment wasn't heated well, nor did it really have proper insulation. She didn't want to get out from under the covers, but she knew she had to get ready for work, besides she heard Robert already getting ready for his day.

Pulling her head out from under the blanket, she saw Robert in his running outfit doing stretches. "Hey Sabine, man you are one heavy sleeper, I was bangin' around here for 20 minutes before ya woke up."

This unsettled her, she never used to be that way. She'd become to use to a routine. She was losing her edge from no action and no danger. She needed to get back into fighting shape soon, before the fight and they left.

"I'm gonna head out now, ya can change for work after I'm gone, no decent and all that to do it in front of me." He said walking to her, bending over and giving her a quick kiss on the forehead.

With that he went out the door, Sabine faintly heard him already running down the hall.

Sighing she looked at the clock. She had an hour to get ready for work and get there. She had showered the night before so she didn't have to worry about her hygiene. But she had to wear her clothes from the previous day, not the worst thing in the world but she didn't like the idea. She hadn't thought about this until just this moment, but there was no helping it now, she'd just have to work her shift and head to the Ghost and change afterwards.

Reluctantly she got up and changed into the previous days clothes. The day was cold, but she was dressed warm enough that it wasn't more than an irritant.

Checking herself over for everything she needed, she made her way out side and to her soul crushing job.

All things considered, Sabine hated her job. It wasn't even that the job was hard or even extremely unpleasant. No, the problem was this was not what she was meant to be doing. She was an artist and warrior, she needed high energy and excitement in her life to feel normal.

As it stood she was living the closest thing to a normal life she had ever experienced. She had a boyfriend, a normal job, and a constant living area, even if it was just a crippled ship.

As she loaded up her bin with plates, cups and left over food Sabine thought for a moment if she could keep living this life. It wasn't as exciting as what she was used to, but maybe that wasn't a bad thing. She may not be as stimulated as before, but she did have to admit not being shot at was nice.

She also had stability, after a fashion. While her life wasn't stable by other's standards of stability, by her own standards her life was stable. She had a regular job, not a great paying one but still a normal job with regular pay.

And for the first time in her life she was in a relationship. Granted this wasn't what she had imagined when she had previously thought of when she thought of when and if she'd ever date. Robert wasn't what she'd consider her normal type. Robert was a fighter, but she had always imagined she'd end up with another warrior, if she ended up with anyone. She supposed Robert had a certain warriors spirit, but he only ever fought in the ring or to collect debts, never in a life or death fight.

She supposed if she had to live like this for the rest of her life, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. She missed the excitement, but she did like the lack of stress.

As she loaded the last table into the bin she made her way to the dish machine to get them cleaned. This was the last thing she had to do today before she left, even though it was essentially the only thing she did, she found that the first and last trip always felt different from every trip in between. The first always felt like she was wading through waste high cement and the last always made her felt like she was walking on air.

After she loaded the dishes into the machine she went and punched out before heading back to the Ghost.

The walk home found her thought creeping back to her earlier thoughts. She didn't want to keep thinking about, she didn't want to want to stay, but the more she thought about it the more she thought it might not be so bad.

It was just Robert, as much as she now knew she loved him, but it was the entire idea of living a normal life, away from danger. But at the same time, she had an urge burning in her stomach to fight. The Empire had taken a great deal from her and she wanted to pay it back.

Sabine knew right now she was facing a choice she never thought she'd have to make, and she didn't really want to. She could stay here, with Robert and live out a fairly normal life, or she could stay with the Ghost and continue the fight.

Staying would mean losing her family however, and she knew she couldn't stand the thought of never seeing any of them ever again. As much as she loved Robert, she couldn't leave the family she had on the Ghost.

As she approached the shuttle bay that would bring her back to the Ghost, Sabine felt a realization that hurt her to her very core. She'd have to leave Robert behind.

The real kicker to her was she knew this would happen, and she had ignored her own better judgment to experience the short term thrill of a relationship she knew would end when she left.

Not only would it hurt her, but Robert was going to be hurt as well. She was kicking herself for this now, and frankly she didn't want to think about it right now, she knew this was coming and she had resolved to handle it as it came, and she decided to continue on this path, pushing the thought down and trying think of something else.

Her mind had settled Robert's actual chances. She had seen a massive improvement in his foot work and movement. That being his one weakness in a fight, combined with his incredible punching power and endurance, Sabine found herself truly believing Robert could win.

Now this didn't equate to outright confidence that he'd definitely win, but she thought he really had a chance now. Weathers was still a much better fighter and much faster, but Robert might just be able to outlast him. In her research on the current Champ, she found he never had a fight go beyond the 9th round. That meant that he was used to finishing the fights fairly early and might not be able to handle a long lasting fighter like Robert who could just absorb punishment before succumbing. That combined with his incredible punching power may win him the match.

Sabine boarded the shuttle and sat down to be alone with her thoughts. Sabine had always been able to be fairly objective on her thoughts, and she hoped she was doing so now. She had, with Kanan and Hera's knowledge, placed another bet on Robert, another 2,000 credits, on Robert to win. This she had taken from the credits they had set aside to buy the parts for the ship, where as the bet Kanan had placed was from the credits they had all earned by working their odd jobs.

She had her own reason for this, first and foremost was id Robert did win by a knockout, which is what Sabine thought was his most likely chance of winning, they'd lose the bet Kanan and Hera had made.

Additionally, if Robert somehow won a decision, unlikely but possible, then they'd have a much larger source of credits.

But she supposed her biggest reason was more emotional than anything else. She wanted to prove to herself that she had faith in Robert to win. She supposed she wanted to convince herself more than anything that Robert could win, and in turn convincingly support him.

It wasn't rational, but she supposed love wasn't always rational. The shuttle landed and Sabine made her way off the shuttle and headed back to the Ghost.

Sabine found the ship empty on her return. She wasn't surprised at this, the rest of the crew was working. A Quick look at the work schedule confirmed this, she had the only morning work schedule and this left her the rest of the day to herself.

However, she didn't have anything she wanted to do, she found herself mentally and physically exhausted from work and her own thoughts. Another sign she was getting use to her new fairly sedentary life style, these stress were nothing compared to battle.

However, regardless of the why, Sabine found herself heading to her bunk to get some more sleep. She supposed she was also dealing with more emotional stress than she was used to, that may also be a factor in her exhaustion. She also thought it may be other factors, including the constant cold weather and she may in fact be getting sick.

The why didn't matter right now, she was tired and wanted to go to sleep. Opening the door or her cabin, she walked to her bunk, changed into her sleeping clothes, climbed into bed and tried to sleep.

This was not as easy a task as she might of hoped given her exhaustion. She just could shut her mind off, to many thing passed through her mind. Their small rebellion, Robert's fight, her choice in staying or leaving, peppered with dozens of smaller less important thoughts from the events of the day.

As she lay in her bed, Sabine found her thoughts fogging, becoming less coherent and blending together, and found herself thinking of weird combinations of her thoughts, like Kanan fighting weathers, Robert training Ezra, and Agent Kallus breaking thumbs, although the last one probably wasn't too far off from reality.

As her thoughts blended and soon became an odd hodgepodge of her thoughts, Sabine finally drifted off into sleep.

She however did not find a peaceful sleep. Her night was full of dreams and nightmares. Robert being gunned down by Storm Troopers, Kanan being beaten by Weathers, Robert beating Weathers, Robert beating the Inquisitor, Ezra winning the World heavy weight Championship, Hera and Robert kissing, Herself and Kanan kissing, Her kissing Ezra, and a thousand more imagines that seemed to be a random assortment of her thoughts of the previous day.

Sabine woke with a sudden gasp, and again found herself confused on her location. Wiping her hand across her forehead, she realized that she was in fact coming down with some sort of condition, probably a cold or flu from walking in the cold without the proper clothing.

She felt thirsty and got up to get herself a drink of water. After gulping down two glasses, she finished half of the third before refilling it and bring it to her cabin and setting it beside her bunk and climbing back into bed.

She looked at the clock and was shocked to see she'd only been asleep for about an hour, she felt like she'd been asleep for a day.

She needed rest to get over this sickness, and resolved herself to try and sleep again, hoping that his time her dreams would be filled with as many bizarre images.

Thankfully, this time she got her way and found her sleep undisturbed.

**A/N: Longest Chapter yet, but I don't plan on making anymore chapters longer than half the size of this one, This is the past chapter I plan on writing before I actually do the championship fight and I wanted everything else out of the way before that chapter.**

**Reviews are always appreciated. Thanks for reading.**


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